Mistakes
by Kyra4
Summary: Gunther's bewildering behavior frustrates Jane to the point where she flatly refuses to ask him for help– possibly at the cost of her very life. "He could sense time stretching out ahead of him– days, weeks, months. Years. Time that, according to the laughing bandit, wouldn't include Jane. He didn't want it. He didn't want ANY of it, not a single, solitary moment." J/G *Complete*
1. Chapter 1

The worst part about the whole thing was that they were almost within sight of the castle by the time it finally, actually happened. Well all right, "almost within sight" might have been a slight exaggeration, but they were considerably less than half a day's ride away - Jane had really begun to believe that she'd be able to pull if off after all. That she'd be able to ensure that Gunther would never know.

She had been fixated on that idea for nearly three full days now. Say as little as possible. _Do_ as little as possible, other than simply managing to stay on her horse. Refuse to engage with Gunther. Refuse to respond to his baiting. Just grit her teeth and stick it out, stick it out, stick it out. All the while steadily worsening. And all the while refusing to admit it, even to herself, let alone anyone else.

If she could only make it back to the castle. Just make it back to the castle. There were people there who could help her. Her mother was skilled in healing; Pepper was reasonably well-versed in that art as well, and had any number of potions and poultices at her disposal, courtesy of Rake's many herbs. And anything needed that wasn't on hand, Dragon could go for. _She just... had to make it... back... to the castle_.

Why, _why_ was that too much to ask?

So much had gone wrong. Could not this one thing, just this _one thing_ , go right?

Of course not. What a ridiculous notion. And it was all her fault. It was all the result of what she'd allowed to happen - what she'd _participated_ in - three nights ago. She'd known it was a mistake. She'd _known_ it was a mistake. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

They had been dispatched a week ago, she and Gunther, along with four other able-bodied men under their command, to investigate reports of armed brigands in the forest. Dragon had been excluded from this particular mission because the villages which bordered the forest lay far from the castle. The simple peasant folk who lived there had had little exposure to Dragon, and the king felt his presence might be disturbing to them. The arrival of the knights was meant to reassure them, make them feel safe again, after all; not traumatize them further.

Additionally, the fact that the rogues had taken cover in the forest rendered Dragon virtually useless anyway. He would not be able to see them from above through the thick tree cover, nor would he be able to negotiate the deep woods on foot. So, although neither he nor Jane were particularly happy about it, he had stayed behind.

The king's orders had been to confirm various witness accounts of the outlaws and, if possible, flush them out of hiding and capture or thoroughly roust them. A fairly straightforward task. Successful, too. Six people had left the castle; six people were returning. In addition, they were bringing three of the rogues back with them to face the king's justice. Two more had been killed in the one brief skirmish, and the rest had scattered; leaderless, demoralized, and frightened. They were not likely to cause any more harm to the law-abiding folk of Kippernium - at least, not for a good while.

A triumphant venture in every respect. No casualties whatsoever. At least, not that anyone knew about save Jane.


	2. Chapter 2

There had been so many mistakes packed so closely together that Jane had a hard time deciphering their actual order, especially in her current, desperately compromised state. They were jumbling together in her mind. If she strained, though, she thought she could make some sense of them, some...progression.

The first, she supposed, had been accepting Gunther's surreptitiously offered flask as they'd sat around the campfire with their companions three nights ago. She and Gunther had been seated beside each other, so close that their elbows had occasionally brushed, and, she had noticed, he hadn't offered the flask to anyone else.

The two of them were knights; the other men who had been ordered along were not. The other men were subordinate; subject to Gunther and Jane's orders. The two of them were different, this gesture seemed to say. Set apart. Special. So Jane had accepted the flask both times it had been offered, and had only spluttered a little - her grimaces had hardly been noticeable, she'd assured herself - until a quick, sideways glance at Gunther had revealed the tiny spark of humor flashing deep in his slate colored eyes.

Then both of them had been wrenching their lips suddenly and violently downward, mutually struggling against the laughter that had wanted to come. A second later, when Gunther had shifted his attention to the guttering fire, she'd elbowed him in the ribs, hard, almost sending him sprawling off the log they'd been using as a seat. Even his muttered string of oaths had sounded suspiciously like barely-suppressed mirth.

That sense of camaraderie, that acceptance of his gesture with the flask - yes, that had been the first mistake.


	3. Chapter 3

The second had come not long after. Jane had drawn the first watch, which had been fine with her, as the liquor Gunther had shared with her had been burning and tingling pleasantly throughout her body, keeping her beautifully warm and spreading a sense of contentment and well-being through her. She hadn't wanted to sleep; she'd wanted to stay awake awhile and savor this feeling. Yes, she'd been very pleased about drawing first watch.

Gradually the men had all settled down into their bedrolls, grouped about the dying fire. At first there had been the rustling of bodies attempting to get comfortable on the hard ground, a few grunts and whispers and murmured good-nights. Then the men had quieted, their breathing had evened out, and other than the occasional soft snore, silence had reigned over the camp. Jane, sitting propped against the trunk of a nearby tree, had allowed the quiet to wash over her, enjoying the solitude, the soft creaks and sighs of the forest all around her, the furtive scurryings of small nocturnal creatures in the underbrush.

That sense of peace, of "all is well" - surely that had been the second mistake.

OOOOO

Nearly an hour later, Jane had still been tingling pleasantly from the contents of Gunther's flask - it was strong, whatever it was that he carried around with him. Out of the corner of her eye she had noticed a flicker of movement; instantly alert, she'd seen a shadowy figure approaching her from over by the bedrolls. She'd known immediately who it was, even in the dark - she could make out just enough to recognize his shape, the way he moved.

Of course she'd known him. She'd know him anywhere. She was in love with him, wasn't she? Had been at least since she was fourteen years old, and now she was nearly nineteen.

Finally, completely embracing that fact, when she'd trying (unsuccessfully, true, but still trying) to deny it for so long, had probably been the third mistake.


	4. Chapter 4

And then he had been folding himself into a sitting position, settling down beside her, tipping his head back, leaning it against the trunk of the tree, looking up through the tangle of branches above them to the starshot sky beyond. And Jane, tilting _her_ head slightly to sneak a sideways glance at him, had felt her breath catch in her throat, because his eyes were awash in starlight.

"You know, we might see some real action tomorrow," he'd murmured, still gazing steadfastly upward. "The brigands are real, and I think they are close."

Jane concurred. Although they hadn't yet caught sight of any of the rogues, they had certainly found evidence of their presence in these woods, and fairly fresh evidence at that. Bits of rubbish; a footprint now and again, where the ground was soft; traces of campfires not long cold.

"Yes, I think we might," she had said softly.

Then he'd been turning to face her completely, his eyes boring into her, direct and completely disarming.

"Jane, I - things could happen tomorrow. There could be fighting. People could... could get hurt."

Her brow had furrowed, perplexed. It was true that they had never actually gone up against armed enemies before, but still, why did he feel the need to spell these things out? They were patently obvious. She didn't need _him_ to tell her there could be fighting tomorrow. That's what they had _come_ for. Well, they had come to take the brigands. But the brigands were hardly likely to surrender peacefully. Being brigands and all.

"Gunther," she'd said, "I know that."

Gunther had frowned. Raked a hand through his hair; an abrupt, jerky movement.

"Yes, but do you know - Jane, do you understand - what you - what I - oh, hell and damnation."

He had reached out then and gripped both her shoulders with nearly painful intensity. "You have to stay safe, all right? Promise me you will stay safe. It would kill me if anything happened to you. _Jane_. It would -"

He'd broken off abruptly then, given his head a sudden, sharp shake as if to clear it. His eyes had been blazing. Her head had been spinning. And then - then -

He had closed the distance - scant inches - that separated them, and had sealed his lips to her own.

Jane had stiffened for only an instant, and then melted into him. Would she have done it - would she have had the courage, or perhaps the _recklessness_ to do it - if the liquid fire he'd given her to drink earlier hadn't still been coursing, _singing_ through her veins? She didn't know and really, it hardly mattered. What mattered was this: losing herself in that kiss - that had undoubtedly been the fourth mistake.


	5. Chapter 5

Very little had been said after that, but they had spent the remainder of Jane's time on watch engaged in an intense, and very physical, exploration of one another. For Jane it was the culmination of years of frustrated longing, of thinking she had loved someone who did not, _could_ not, ever love her back. Based on his demeanor, it seemed to be something very similar for Gunther.

When her watch had been up, Jane had pulled herself to her feet on legs that shook. Losing Gunther's heat had felt a little bit like dying. She had started to sit back down, wanting nothing more than to nestle back into his warmth, but then Gunther had been standing too, right beside her. "Go and rest," he'd whispered. "I do not know what tomorrow may bring, but we will need to be sharp, so try to sleep."

Then he had pulled her into a brief, hard hug, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other hand splayed in her hair, holding her head pressed to his shoulder. "Just stay safe tomorrow," he had murmured. "You... are precious to me, Jane."

Then they'd broken apart and Jane had felt so giddy she'd almost fallen down. Gunther had stayed where he was - his watch was directly after hers. So she had turned toward the bedrolls, alone, had even taken a couple of steps away from Gunther - but then she'd swallowed hard, steeled herself, and turned back.

"I love you, Gunther Breech," she'd whispered into the darkness. "I have for years." And surely that had been been the fifth mistake.

OOOOO

There had been no response. She could hardly even make Gunther out anymore; just a shape in the darkness, that's all he'd been. She'd picked her way over to where the others were sleeping and had virtually collapsed into the scratchy, somewhat moth-eaten warmth of her own blankets. Sleep had taken her almost instantly.

Assuming that what had just happened - what had just been _revealed_ \- would matter at all come morning, that had been her sixth mistake.

Because come morning, Gunther wouldn't even look at her.


	6. Chapter 6

Yawning, still half-asleep, she had crossed the clearing to where Gunther had sat nursing a tin cup of tea on the log by the fire, in the same place where he'd offered her the flask the previous night. The same place where she'd accepted.

His back had been to her and she'd had a moment of nerves, of almost paralyzing shyness, but she'd shaken it off, silently scolding herself. To be shy after last night? Ridiculous! Everything was different now; everything was out in the open. Finally - _finally!_ He knew how much he mattered to her now, and _she_ knew - _you are precious to me, Jane_ \- a tiny smile had quirked one corner of her lips. She knew how much she mattered to him, as well.

So she'd taken a seat beside him, shoulder to shoulder as they'd been the night before, and had started to ask him how he had slept, but she hadn't gotten any further than "did you -" when he had virtually shot to his feet, shot up faster than a scalded cat, and moved decisively away from her, emptying the remaining tea from his cup into the underbrush with a curt, almost savage thrust of his arm.

As Jane had watched, open mouthed with astonishment, he'd crossed to his bedroll and begun bundling it up. When he had spoken, he'd done it still without so much as looking at her, his words short, his voice biting.

"Nice of you to finally join us this morning. Get a move on, Turnkey - we have a long day ahead."

Jane had sat frozen for several more seconds before bolting to her own feet, turning and leaving the camp with what she hoped appeared to be calm, purposeful strides. Inwardly, she'd felt dangerously close to falling apart.

She'd walked several yards into the trees to a little brook where she had gathered water the night before, to boil for supper. Falling to her knees at the edge of the stream, she had struggled mightily for composure, fighting against the breaths that were trying to come too fast, against the stinging sensation behind her eyes that wanted to turn into tears.

 _I will not cry, will not, will not_.

She'd scooped some water with shaking hands, splashed it on her face so that she could deny, even to herself, the few wayward tears that managed to escape her control. It was brook water, that was all.

That was all.

But why? _Why?_

Why was he doing this to her? After what they had shared the night before? The things they had done, the things he had _said?_ It was as if it had never happened. No, it was _worse_ than if it had never happened, because before it had happened they'd actually been getting along really well. And now they were... they were... _what_ exactly?

"Nothing," she'd muttered aloud. "We are nothing. Just like before. Just like always."

She'd gotten her breathing back under control, splashed a little more water on her face, and then returned, grimly, to camp. She'd refused the offer of breakfast (an offer made by one of the others, not Gunther), had gathered her things and secured them to her horse, and made ready to ride out. She hadn't looked directly at Gunther again. If this was how he wanted things, so be it. She could match him in his brusque indifference just as she'd matched him in everything else over the years. If he thought otherwise, he'd soon know different.


	7. Chapter 7

The light had been slanting long and golden through the trees, when the ambush came.

Jane's party had spent most of the day hunting through the thick woods, but they had finally found what they'd been looking for; a camp that appeared quite fresh, as though it had been abandoned – and hastily, at that – only a very short time ago.

They'd been right.

In fact, what they hadn't realized, as they'd dismounted and entered the clearing on foot to investigate further, was that the outlaws were still quite present; they'd only melted a short way back into the trees. They were assessing the "intruders" who had entered their home, and quietly reaching a conclusion of their own.

How very, very differently things might have turned out for all concerned, had the brigands simply decided to stay concealed among the trees and avoid confrontation – but they chose differently. The raiding party looked singularly unimpressive to them; only six people, after all, and one of them a _woman_ at that! For heaven's sake, a _woman!?_ The king thought so little of the threat they posed that he was sending _girls_ to chase them down? Plain insulting was what it was.

No, it was not to be endured. They had decided to press the attack.

It was not a choice that worked out well for them.

OOOOO

That evening, back in the same clearing where Jane's party had made camp the night before, the three captured bandits had huddled together at the edge of the trees; cold, bound, and hungry. The five victorious men, on the other hand, were grouped around the campfire and enjoying much backslapping, laughter and bravado. All equals for the moment in their sense of victory and just plain _relief_ , they'd passed the flask freely about, enjoying one another's company, reveling in their sense of accomplishment at a job well done.

The one victorious woman had sat apart, at the very edge of the fire's illumination, more in shadow than in light, positioned closer to the prisoners than her own compatriots. She'd been overwhelmed by the size of the fire and the heat of the flames – her comrades, in a surfeit of good spirits, had built it up almost obscenely high. She'd been overwhelmed by their boisterousness, by the sheer volume of their merrymaking – in fact, at that point she'd been overwhelmed by just about everything.

So she'd sat apart, hunched and miserable, her head bowed forward, arms wrapped protectively about herself. She'd accepted the plate of food handed her by one of the men, but had placed it carefully down beside herself without touching it.

If Gunther had glanced her way a few times, if her demeanor had caused him any unease, he'd done his very best to brush it off; _sulking, yes_ , he'd told himself, _but safe_. That was what mattered. _Safe_. He wanted to kick himself when he thought about his behavior the previous night – of all the cataclysmically stupid times to go muddying the water with his declarations of love! He'd anticipated an engagement with the outlaws and he'd been right – and dear God, what had he been _thinking_ the night before, going and doing something like that, running the risk of her being distracted at a crucial moment by his ridiculous, unsolicited, _adolescent_ confessions?

He'd lain awake the entire night after his watch, sick with himself. But he had reestablished some distance that morning and now it was over and they were all right – _she_ was all right. No thanks to him, but she was all right. Thank God.

If he'd only known. If he'd had any idea what had really happened in the outlaws' camp that day…..


	8. Chapter 8

If Gunther had known, it would have just about killed him… but he didn't know, and that was exactly how Jane wanted it. She could handle this. She could. She _knew_ she could. It was nothing to fuss over, really – nothing much at all.

What happened was this:

 _They walk cautiously into the clearing, spreading out a bit as they go, eyes everywhere at once. But there's really nothing to see – or so it seems at first. The outlaws are in their element, after all; these are men who have spent weeks, months, in a couple of cases more than a_ year _, living in the forest. These are men who survive by coming upon travelers unaware. They know how to blend into their surroundings; how to become all but invisible._

 _It is Jane who first catches a flicker of movement in the foliage – it is Jane who puts her own people on guard, and in the nick of time, too._

 _"_ _Defensive positions!" she shouts. "Look to the trees!" And the words have barely left her mouth when the clearing explodes into action. The brigands abandon their cover and rush Jane's group – there are over a dozen of them and they come from almost as many directions._

 _Amid the ensuing chaos, Jane has only one thought and that is to get closer to Gunther. She'd been about as far as physically possible from him when they'd entered the encampment, seeing as they've been studiously ignoring each other all day. This changes things though._

 _Imminent danger changes_ everything.

 _She locates him and makes her way toward him, engaging with one of the outlaws on the way. They are poorly equipped, not trained at_ all _, and unaccustomed to meeting any resistance whatsoever. They already seem to be realizing, to their dismay, that taking on a party of king's men is a vastly different prospect than setting upon frightened peasantfolk and travelers._

 _Jane disarms one of the rogues with a few deft sword strokes – sends him fleeing toward the cover of the trees without so much as a backward glance. Then she turns again toward Gunther and her heart freezes in her chest._

 _Gunther is fully engaged with two brigands who have rushed him head-on. He doesn't see Jane closing the distance between them, and there's something else he doesn't see either; a third man, off to one side, who hasn't broken cover yet. Who's sill hanging back in the trees, and who's notching an arrow to his bow; drawing it back to let fly._

 _Gunther doesn't see any of this – but Jane sees. He has no idea the danger he's in –_

 _But Jane knows._

 _There is no time to think, only to act – and there's nothing to think about in any case. All of her internal turmoil regarding Gunther is wiped clean in a heartbeat. The icy distance that's loomed between them all day ceases to matter, to even exist._

 _Nothing matters anymore except_ protecting _him. The world has narrowed down to this, and this alone. She's moving, flinging herself between Gunther and the man with the bow, praying with every fiber of her being that she will be in time._

 _She is._

 _She staggers backward with the impact, but manages to keep her feet. In those first few seconds there isn't even any pain, just a deep, enveloping sense of shock as she stares down at the shaft of the arrow protruding from her shoulder, then back up again, wide-eyed and stunned into immobility, at the man who loosed it._

 _He stares back at her appearing just as shocked as she by this turn of events – then gives his head a slight, almost regretful-looking shake and melts back into the woods, vanishing from sight._

 _Jane returns her attention to the arrow and_ that _is when the pain hits her and with it, a brief but breathtakingly intense wave of vertigo. She stumbles again, drops her sword from suddenly nerveless fingers, shoots a wild look toward Gunther._

 _She is positioned to the side and slightly behind him, and he is still occupied with the two men who ran at him a moment ago. He isn't struggling – he's in complete control. But he_ is _busy. He hasn't seen. In fact, it doesn't appear that_ anyone's _seen. There is too much activity whirling about._

 _It is their little secret – the man with the bow's, and hers._

 _And she resolves right then that it's going to stay that way._


	9. Chapter 9

[All right. You are all right. It is only your shoulder. Just breathe. Breathe and think this through.]

 _Gunther_ cannot _know about this. The situation betweem them is bad enough already, withouth throwing_ more _fuel on the fire. He will not react well to this and she really doesn't fancy a confrontaton, particularly when it's only an arrow to the shoulder and she can handle it perfectly well until she gets home. There is no_ reason _for him to know. Not now, not ever._

 _So then…_

[So then the arrow has to come out. Right now.]

 _She's perfectly well aware that in most circumstances, an arrow should not be dislodged until proper medical attention is at hand, but then, this is hardly "most circumstances", is it? And it's not as if anything vital's been hit._

 _She risks another glance at Gunther. He is still occupied, but she needs to act fast. She returns her attention to the arrow. Once it's removed, it will not be difficult at all to conceal this. Due to a combination of circumstances including the thick, tough leather of her jerkin and what must have been an abysmally poor quality bow, only the arrowhead and perhaps an inch of the shaft – at most – have penetrated her body._

 _There isn't even any blood visible. She can feel it spreading beneath her clothing, tacky and warm – but the same thick leather that prevented the wound from being much worse than it is, is also preventing the blood from seeping through. Once the arrow itself is gone, the wound will be essentially invisible._

 _Good._

 _She gulps in a deep, shuddering breath; takes hold of the arrow shaft; bites her lip, hard. Slams her eyes shut. And yanks._

 _PAIN. Stunning in scope and intensity, especially considering how she's spent the past several seconds convincing herself that really, this is no big deal._

 _The pain says otherwise. It is huge, explosive._

 _In that moment, it is all-encompassing._

 _Then it is over. She is left gasping and trembling in its wake. She feels something hot trickling down her chin – she swipes at it and her hand comes away red. She has bitten her lip bloody._

 _But she didn't cry out. She didn't attract attention to herself. That is what matters._

[Breathe. The worst is over. Breathe Jane breathe just breathe.]

 _The worst is over. In that moment, she believes it. And that is probably the gravest mistake she's made yet._


	10. Chapter 10

_"_ _Are you all right?"_

 _She is in a haze. She's just standing there, and has no concept, really, of how long she's_ been _just standing there. She doesn't even properly register the first words he speaks to her, so a second later, true to nature, he's shouting._

 _"_ _Jane! JANE!"_

 _"_ _Wh…what?" She spins toward the sound of his voice. She's still reeling from everything that's just happened. She stumbles again, almost unable to_ stop _herself from spinning once she starts, and her stomach drops as she realizes that she's still clutching the arrow in one hand. Thrusting her arm behind herself, she drops it quickly, guiltily – like a child caught holding some forbidden object, an expensive bauble or purloined sweet._

 _He doesn't notice, thank God. His gaze is riveted on her face._

 _"_ _I_ said _, are you –" he breaks off, eyes narrowing to slits. "You are bleeding."_

 _Before Jane can even begin to process what he's doing, he's caught her chin in one hand and is running the thumb of his other hand across her lower lip, wiping away the blood which she herself had only managed to smear around. She winces. She hates that she does it, but she can't help it._

 _His eyes are burning into her. "What happened?"_

 _"_ _I –"_

 _"_ _You_ bit _yourself. There must be a reason._ Something _happened. Are you hurt somehow?"_

 _"_ _No."_

 _"_ _Jane –"_

 _"_ _Gunther, I said no!"_

 _She yanks her head back; he drops his hand. She glances around and realizes that the skirmish is over, just that quickly. There are no more active combatants left in the clearing; a couple of the outlaws have fallen, but most have fled. Three have surrendered and her people are even now disarming and securing them._

 _It happened so fast. All of it happened so fast. She can hardly make sense of it._

 _She returns her attention to Gunther, to find that he's taken a step back and is looking her over, critically, from head to foot and back again._

 _Visibly, there is nothing wrong with her at all. (Well, except for her stupid bitten lip.) She knows this, and is grateful for it, although her shoulder is throbbing with bright, hot pulses of pain and she can still feel blood seeping from the wound to soak her clothes beneath the jerkin. She really needs to get away for a few minutes, to peel back the stiff leather, assess the wound and staunch the blood flow._

 _But Gunther still doesn't seem entirely convinced._

 _"_ _Jane, if you –"_

 _Damnit, damnit, DAMNIT, why does he have to read her so well? He has_ no right _, not when he's capable of shutting_ her _out completely, of becoming a perfect enigma to her, at will, the way he had just this morning. Just when she'd finally thought she knew where they stood, and – and –_

 _He doesn't get to do this. He doesn't._

 _"_ _I said I am_ fine – _" she snaps, although the horrifying truth is that she's very nearly in tears – "and what do you care, anyway!?"_

 _It's like a mask drops over his face. One instant there is expression there – a mixture of perplexity, irritation, but also concern – in fact,_ mostly _concern – and the next there is nothing, nothing at all._

 _And as exasperated as Jane is with him, as much as she doesn't_ want _to care that he's capable of doing that, it still hurts her._

 _But not as much as what he says next._

 _"_ _Fine then. I felt duty-bound to ask. So since everything is all right," and now his voice is positively_ oozing _contempt, "may I suggest you pull yourself the hell together, stop_ daydreaming _or whatever it is you were doing just now, and actually make yourself useful? There is still work to be done. Oh and by the way," he throws over his shoulder as he turns to stalk off, "you might want to remember to pick up your SWORD!"_


	11. Chapter 11

_He doesn't see her stagger again as he walks away – her legs very nearly go out from under her this time._

 _She exhales – a sick, double-hitching sort of reverse gasp – a profoundly hurt little sound._

 _Hurt more from the physical wound inflicted by the bowman, or the emotional one inflicted by the man she loves? At this point, she can no longer even differentiate between the two. They're all twisted up together. This is horrible. Horrible._

 _She turns her head, looks down at her sword. She actually_ had _forgotten it until Gunther mentioned it._

 _Mentioned it? Flung it in her face, more like._

 _Do something useful. Pick up your sword._

[But I only dropped it when – I did it for –]

 _But it's irrelevant. it doesn't matter. Not unless she plans to_ tell _him what she did and why. And she doesn't plan to do that. Ever. So._

[So pick up the sword.]

 _She crouches down, moving slowly, cautiously. She's been moving slowly ever since the arrow hit her, but she understands that this isn't a luxury she's going to be able to keep indulging in. She's going to have to project a sense of normalcy if she wants to keep this to herself. Gunther is_ right; _she needs to pull herself together._

 _She retrieves the blade, gets back to her feet, and heads for the treeline. Privacy is required for what she has to do next._

OOOOO

 _She makes it a few feet into the trees – just out of sight of the clearing – and that is when her legs really do fail her._

 _She stumbles and falls sideways against the nearest tree trunk, then slides down it until she's on her knees on the ground._

 _Not good. Oh not good. If Gunther had seen that –_

[He did not, though. So breathe. It is under control, just breathe.]

 _All right. She's going to get through this. It's just her shoulder. Just a nick to her shoulder, that's all._

 _She fumbles with her jerkin, distantly surprised to find that her hands are shaking so hard she can barely make them obey her._

[Get it together. Master yourself. Breathe. _Breathe_.]

 _She inhales sharply, through her teeth, as she probes tentatively at the wound with her fingertips. Her exploration more or less confirms what she already thought; the wound is neither large nor deep, and it did not damage anything... essential._

 _But God almighty, does it ever_ hurt _._

 _Making a valiant effort to ignore the pain, she gets to work doctoring herself as best she can._

OOOOO

 _When she reenters the clearing a few minutes later, she finds her group getting ready to ride out. She hears the tail end of Gunther's command;_

 _"– back to our last campsite for the night, then on to the castle with all possible haste to turn over the prisoners and make our report."_

 _She is faintly, distantly annoyed by this. It isn't Gunther's mission, it's_ their _mission, and he has no right to go around issuing unilateral orders without consulting her first. She recognizes that under different circumstances, she'd be absolutely furious at his high-handedness._

 _As it is, though, faint annoyance is the most she can muster. And even that is tinged with a sense of relief. She's not clear-headed enough to be making those kinds of decisions at the moment. She's compromised on every level; physically injured, mentally scattered, and emotionally devastated. She just wants to keep her head down, attract as little attention to herself as possible, and get home as quickly as she can. And Gunther's orders don't interfere with any of those objectives. In fact, they support them._

 _So she takes a few deep breaths in an attempt to steady herself, swallows hard and mounts up._


	12. Chapter 12

So it was that she'd found herself huddled on the edge of the firelight that evening, apart from the others, folded in on herself, trying, with only limited success, to process everything that had happened on that long, traumatic day.

And still she hadn't even begun to understand just _how_ wrong things actually were. Her first real inkling had come hours later, in the dead of night.

OOOOO

"Jane." A hand on her shoulder, giving her a brisk, peremptory shake. If he'd chanced to grab the injured shoulder, she would almost certainly have cried out, and the whole deception would have ended right there. But that's not how things had fallen out, for better… or worse.

" _Jane_." His voice again; brusque, impatient.

"Wha…what izzit?" she'd muttered, fighting her way up from a sleep that had, apparently, bordered on downright unconsciousness. It hadn't wanted to let her go. "Gunther…?"

"Your watch," he'd said shortly, already turning and moving away through the dark, around to the far side of the almost-burned-out fire, where his own bedroll waited.

She'd struggled into a sitting position, pushing a sleep-tangled mass of hair out of her eyes, trying to get her bearings. It had been right at that moment that she'd registered the earth seemed to be spinning beneath her; a constant slow, lazy, sickening rotation.

And that was definitely not right.

But it had been a moment later, once she'd actually gained her feet, that she'd realized just _how_ wrong things were. Because she'd understood instantly, and without a shred of doubt, that she was about to be ill – very, very ill.

She'd bolted for the edge of camp, groggy and disoriented, managing to make it a short way into the undergrowth before falling to her hands and knees, her whole body suddenly heaving as she retched. She had tried frantically to keep quiet, but there's only so much control that one can exert over that kind of… activity.

And she hadn't been successful.

Muted, under-breath curses from the other side of the campsite, followed by quickly approaching footsteps. She'd groaned despairingly, wishing herself anywhere, _anywhere_ else, and then a new wave of nausea had surged through her and she'd been retching again, no longer capable, for the moment, of coherent thought at all.

So she hadn't really even been able to react when, seconds later, a strong arm wrapped snugly around her waist from behind, holding her steady. Gunther had been on his knees with her, saying nothing for the moment, just lending her his strength and using his other hand to gather her sleep-mussed hair back, out of her face.

It had felt like it lasted forever, and when it had finally ended, she'd been left shaking and coughing, utterly spent. She'd slumped back against Gunther, not because she'd wanted to, but because she'd literally had no choice.

"Here. Drink."

She hadn't even realized that her eyes had fallen shut until he'd spoken. She'd opened them again, dazed, and looked down to see something in his hand. "You must be joking," she'd said, her voice little more than a rusty croak.

 _His_ voice had been unmistakably tinged with amusement, despite everything. "It is _water_ , Jane."

She'd blinked. On closer inspection, yes, it _was_ a waterskin – not that ever-present, _dangerous_ little flask of his. She had come to really dislike that flask. This, on the other hand –

She'd upended it, and proceeded to drink it dry.


	13. Chapter 13

"All right," he'd asked a moment later, "what happened?" They'd been facing each other by then, sitting on the forest floor a few feet away from the site of her… episode.

"Nuh…nothing." She'd still been shaking – all of her, even her voice. But she'd already been getting a handle on it, reasserting control. "Nothing happened. I just… it must have been something I ate."

Gunther had frowned. She'd been able to see it, the change in his expression, even in the darkness – or a hint of it, at any rate. But much more, she'd been able to hear it in his voice.

"You have _not_ eaten anything," he'd said flatly. "All day."

Jane had tensed immediately. "Then maybe it was a result of _not_ eating. I –"

"I do not think not eating leads to… _that_."

"I do not know, all right!? What do you want me to say, Gunther?"

"The _truth_ , Jane!"

"Oh, so now I am a liar." The fact that she had, indeed, been lying had not been lost on her – but it hadn't made her feel, or sound, any less bitter. "This conversation is over. Go to bed."

"What, after _that!?_ You are the one who is going to bed; I will take your watch."

She'd stiffened all over. "Absolutely _not_. I neither need nor _want_ you to do my job for me, Gunther!"

"For God's sake, Jane, will you stop being _obstinate_ about –"

" _No!_ " Quite suddenly, she'd felt herself on the verge of hysterics. "We are done talking about this! What is the point of talking about _anything_ , anyway, when in the morning you will not even look at me? _Right!?_ That seems to be how it works, so just… get an early start on it and _go to bed!_ I – am – _fine_."

He'd sat stock-still for a moment, then had gotten to his feet. "Have it your way," he'd said in a frighteningly inflectionless voice, and then he'd been gone.

A new wave of nausea had threatened her then, but it had been weak this time, probably because she'd had nothing left to expel. She'd fought it back savagely even as her shoulder had throbbed slow, sullen beats of pain beneath her clothes. She'd drawn up her knees and dropped her head into her hands, gulping for air, her body still shuddering, feeling on the knife-edge of panic even while insisting to herself that she didn't understand why.

There was no _reason_ to panic. All right, she wasn't feeling great, but she'd be home in two days. Two days, that was all. She could keep it together for two days, by God! She _had_ to. And the less interaction she had with Gunther in the interim, the better.


	14. Chapter 14

The situation had not improved by morning.

In fact, she'd had to clamp down hard to stifle a groan as she'd forced herself up and out of her bedroll. Her head had been swimming, her body had been leaden, and her shoulder had been throbbing miserably.

She'd made her way some distance into the trees to reassess the wound, fearing that infection could be setting in. But it hadn't looked infected. No puffiness, no discharge, no redness – at least, no _more_ redness than had been there since the wound was first sustained. It made no sense.

It wasn't as if she'd _wanted_ to discover the tell-tale signs of infection, but at least it would have explained what was going on. The wound was not serious, and apparently not infected either.

So why did she _feel_ this way? This utterly and abjectly _wretched?_

At breakfast, she'd barely managed to choke down even a bite or two of food. Gunther had been staring at her from across the campfire with narrowed eyes, or she wouldn't even have attempted to eat.

When it had become clear that she would not be able to eat anything substantial at all, she'd forced herself to at least take a few sips of water - although she really hadn't wanted that either. Her body hadn't seemed to want _anything_ , at least not anything that she was capable of giving it.

 _[Just have to get home, that is all. If we make good time today, we could be home by tomorrow noon. Then everything will be all right. Just get home.]_

She'd gotten to her feet and gone to bundle up her bedroll, feeling the weight of Gunther's continued stare even as she'd walked away.


	15. Chapter 15

That evening, as she'd dismounted at the end of the day's ride, her legs had failed her for the second time.

They'd buckled as her feet had touched the ground, simply refusing to support her, and thank _God_ she'd still had the reins in her hand, because they'd suddenly and literally been the _only_ thing holding her up.

She'd gasped, tightened her grip, and frantically clutched at the horse's mane with her other hand. Then she'd buried her face in the side of the animal's neck and just stood there, holding on for dear life, shuddering, trying to get her breathing, and her suddenly-racing heartbeat, back under control.

She'd gulped in several deep breaths, nuzzling her face in under the horse's mane, breathing in the animal's inherently comforting, earthy equine scent. Steadying herself.

Struggling against the sense of panic that wanted to rise in her like a tide. Fighting it back.

Willing herself calm.

Maybe she _should_ say something. Maybe, at this point, she _had_ to.

 _[No! Not now, that makes no sense, we are so close to home. We will get there tomorrow, and when we do, I will have all the help I need.]_

But what if –

 _No_. She'd shaken her head, rubbing her face against the horse's warm, slightly sweat-dampened neck. No. She was not going to say anything now, she was not interested in giving Gunther any more ammunition to use against her. To imply again that she was useless, or weak, or… or… no. Just no.

She couldn't take that. Not on top of everything else. She –

"Jane?"

Her head had shot up, startled eyes flying open to find Gunther there, _right_ there, so close they were almost touching. Frowning down at her with a troubled, dark-grey gaze.

It felt as if her heart had leapt straight into her throat. How had he gotten so close to her without her realizing it!? She'd had no idea, _no_ idea that he'd been… been right on _top_ of her, and that was unacceptable, just completely… _wrong_ , so so very wrong.

She was usually _keenly_ aware of what was going on around her at all times – as a knight, she had to be. It had been trained into her, _drilled_ into her, from a very young age – but more than that, it was an inborn characteristic; something that came naturally to her. Something that always _had_.

Only… only now…

This was bad. This was so bad. What was happening? Dear God, what was _happening_ to her?


	16. Chapter 16

Gunther had raked a hand through his hair. Looked away. Looked back at her again. He'd clearly been deeply unsettled, but seemed at a loss as to what do say or do about it.

"Daydreaming again?" he'd asked, staring at her hard. But before she could frame a reply, he'd raked his hair again and blurted, "this is not like you. Please tell me you are all right."

She'd just stared at him. Everything around them had seemed to slow down – and then fall away. There'd been only the two of them, locked together in that moment with everything, _everything_ , hinging on the words he'd just spoken – and on her reply.

This was the moment, this was her chance to confess, to come clean, to tell him how confused she was by what was happening to her, how scared. To tell him that the wound had been small, _negligably_ small, but the repurcussions were _big_ , big and getting bigger all the time, like the ripples spreading outward from a small pebble tossed into a still pond.

And that made no sense, no sense at all that she could see, and as such it was terrifying, it was so frightening that the only way she could even begin to cope with it was to refuse, just flat-out refuse to look at it head-on.

She could say all this; he'd just invited her to. She could say all this, and he would _help_ her; whatever he thought about it, whatever he thought about _her_ , he would help her. He'd have to.

And yet… therein lay the whole problem. She didn't want to put herself in a position where he _had_ to offer help and she _had_ to accept it. When her mind whispered, traitorously, that she was already _in_ that position, she refuted it flatly. She'd already made herself vulnerable to Gunther once on this disaster of a mission, by sharing his flask, accpeting his advances and – dear God, the humiliation – actually declaring her _love_ for him. And look how all of _that_ had turned out.

She certainly wasn't going to repeat _that_ mistake. Not now, not ever. _Damned_ if she would. So –

"I am fine," she'd said. Then, noting how profoundly unconvinced he looked, she'd added, "a little tired, maybe."

He'd frowned. "but do… is there…" he'd trailed off, though, then simply, abruptly said, "all right," and turned away. "Set up camp as quickly as possible," he'd called out, speaking in general now, no longer exclusively to Jane. "We bed down early and we rise early – before first light. I want to have my midday meal at the castle tomorrow."


	17. Chapter 17

Not even twenty minutes later, Jane's legs had betrayed her a third time.

She'd been carrying wood for the fire. Despite her undeniably worsening condition, the idea of being idle while the others made camp had honestly never even occurred to her.

She'd gathered one armful of branches, deposited it in the place that had been designated for the campfire, and after a moment's internal debate, had decided that she'd felt good enough – well, _okay_ enough – to venture back into the trees for another load. The sudden, completely debilitating sense of weakness and vertigo that had come over her while dismounting had passed, at least for the time being – or so she'd thought.

She'd been only steps away from the fire pit, bearing a second armload of wood, when it had happened again. And this time there'd been nothing for her to grab onto, no way to keep herself from falling. One instant she'd been walking and the next she'd been sitting on the ground, the branches she'd collected spilling out of her arms, more shocked than anything else, really. It had just been so abrupt! Without any warning at all the earth had simply pitched to one side and then… and then she'd been sitting there. Stunned.

And then – of course – had come Gunther.

She'd been staring, stupidly, down at the scattered branches, trying with only _very_ limited success to make sense of what had just happened. Her very thought processes had seemed to be slowing down. And she'd realized, on a distant level, that this should be _really_ alarming. But, probably _because_ her thought processes were slowing down, she simply couldn't find it in herself to be alarmed.

 _Cold_. That was what she'd mostly felt, she'd realized dully. Cold and getting colder every minute. Was it just that night was falling? Or was –

And then Gunther's boots had been filling her field of vision, and then he'd been down on one knee right in front of her.

" _Damn_ it, Jane." He'd sounded tired, very tired – and _entirely_ fed up. "What – "

"I tripped," she'd blurted, loudly, almost _frantically_ , cutting him off. "I had the wood piled up too high, I could not see where I was going, it – "

"Jane."

" – must have been a root, I just did not s– "

"Jane. _Jane_."

It had been her turn, then, to trail off. She'd raised her eyes to meet his for the first time, unconsciously biting on her lip as she did so. She'd tasted blood, and had a moment of disorientation. How long ago had it been, that she'd bitten her lip ragged while yanking out that arrow? Could it only have been a matter of hours, truly? It felt as if a decade had passed.

Forcing herself to meet Gunther's eyes had been hard, but nothing could have prepared her for what she'd seen in them when she did.

He hadn't really been looking at her at all. It was more as if he'd been… looking right through her. Not _into_ her – that was a very important distiction to make. No, not into her, as though he could see what was really going on, but _through_ her, as though he weren't actually seeing her at _all -_ and didn't care to. Through her as though she were starting to not even be real to him anymore; as though he were in the process of detatching himself from her completely.

 _No!_ Her mind had cried frantically, silently. _No, Gunther, do not do that, do not pull away, please, please, I need you now, more than I ever have, can you not see that!?_ How _can you not SEE that!?_

She'd been hurting so badly, on every conceivable level, and deep down, _way_ deep down, she realized she'd been waiting for him to see that, to recognize it, and to _do_ something about it.

But of course he hadn't seen it, because she'd made a deliberate decision to conceal it from him. The fault had been hers, entirely – she'd had no right to feel betrayed by his blindness.

But that hadn't stopped her from feeling it.

And that had all been before he'd even spoken.


	18. Chapter 18

He'd raked a hand through his hair, just like he'd done a short while ago as they'd stood by the horses – well, as _he'd_ stood by the horses and she'd clung to her reins in a desperate bid to stay upright.

"Jane –" his eyes had still appeared to be focused on something just past her right shoulder; he hadn't actually been looking at _her_ at all. Not really. "If you would just tell –"

" _No!_ " It had burst out of her before she could control it. She was just so panicked by his new demeanor, this terrifying new sense of detachment that he was projecting.

She'd been reeling already from her collapse – she'd been shocked, and scared, almost beyond reason from that alone, and now this – now this –

She'd had no ability to cope with this, it had been… just utterly beyond her reach. She was out past her depth and she was drowning. So she'd shut down and in doing so, had lost what had been perhaps her last chance to ask for help.

"There is nothing to tell, nothing happened, I tripped, it was stupid, I – I –" she'd realized that her breaths were piling up; she'd been perilously close to bursting into tears. "I am fine, there is nothing wrong, there is nothing _wrong_."

He'd looked at her then, _truly_ looked at her for the first time in this whole bizarre and frightening exchange, and it was the most intense, searching gaze he'd ever levelled on her.

"If something _were_ wrong, Jane," He'd asked, quietly but with the same burning intensity that was in his eyes, " _would_ you tell me?"

She'd opened her mouth but no words had come. All that had wanted to come were sobs, so she'd clamped it shut again, turned her head away from him and slammed her eyes closed against the tears that had been threatening.

Consequently she hadn't seen him get to his feet, but she'd understood that's what had happened when he spoke again, because his voice had no longer been coming from the same level of space that she occupied. He'd been speaking down to her, both literally and figuatively. Speaking down to her in every sense of the word.

"All right." His voice had been flat; emotionless. "If that is how things are, I cannot change your mind, and I am not going to try any longer. I think it is very clear that this kind of assignment is… not suited to your abilities. I do not think you should be given any such tasks in the future. If we are sent back out again to hunt the outlaws further, I do not think you should be a member of the group. You are not… fit for this kind of work. And I intend to make my concerns known to the king, at length, immediately upon our return tomorrow. I just thought you should know. And about the watches tonight - you need not bother. The rest of us can handle it. Just... just go to bed, Jane."

And he'd turned and walked away.


	19. Chapter 19

She had just sat there, for a long, long time. Her head had been spinning… actually, the whole world had seemed to be spinning. And cold. _So_ cold. She'd managed, with a great effort, to fight back the tears, but as soon as they'd subsided, she had become aware that her teeth were beginning to chatter.

Very slowly, moving with the weary stiffness of a woman three times her age, She drew up her legs, crossed her arms atop them, and dropped her head forward, resting her face in the protected space made by her criss-crossed forearms.

And she'd tried to regain her composure. And tried. And tried.

It hadn't happened.

Everyone had heard him. Everyone. He hadn't bothered to keep his voice down. The other men in their group had heard – God, even the _prisoners_ had heard. Every word of it.

The humiliation was staggering. Other under circumstances it might have been all-encompassing. The only reason it hadn't been all-encompassing right then had been the fact that her physical condition had been worsening, it seemed, almost by the minute – to the point where it had started to eclipse _everything_ else, even Gunther's devastating tirade.

 _[You just have to get home. Home, get home.]_

Yes. That was the thing to focus on now. The only thing. She couldn't _allow_ herself to focus on the rest of it, on Gunther. If she did… if she did…

She couldn't even finish the thought. Because it was too horrible to contemplate, yes, but also because _all_ her thoughts, now, seemed to be flying away.

There were only three sure things left. First that Gunther didn't love her, and never had. He'd either been deliberately toying with her the other night, or – more likely – had been considerably more inebriated than she'd realized at the time.

Second, that she was hurt beyond belief, humiliated, overwhelmed, and just, in a word, _dumbfounded_ by how wrong everyhing had gone. And yet, given the opportunity to do it all over again, she'd still have dived in front of that arrow, without a second's hesitation. Absolutely. In fact the worse she felt, the more grateful she was that it wasn't Guther that was going through this.

And third, that she was now absolutely _bone_ -rattlingly chilled.

Clenching her teeth hard in an attempt to stop their chattering, she'd slowly and very carefully gotten to her feet, then trudged over to her horse, freed her bedroll, and lugged it, exhaustedly, to the base of a large boulder at the edge of the campsite.

She'd had to wrestle with it for what had seemed like a ridiculously long time, just to get it laid out. Was she really so weak that just getting her blankets straight had nearly taken more out of her, than she'd had left to _give?_

She supposed she must be.

But honestly it hadn't even seemed very important anymore.

 _Nothing_ had seemed very important anymore. The world around her, and everything in it, had seemed to be… receding, somehow. Just floating away.

And she'd found that she hadn't really much cared.

It had probably been for the best that Gunther had taken her off the watch rotation, anyway.

There'd still been light on the horizon, but she'd huddled down into the blankets, coccooned herself as best she could, turned her back on the rest of the camp, and closed her eyes.

About an hour later, one of the men had brought a plate of food over and left it beside her, but she hadn't stirred. She'd fallen into a fitful sleep by then, curled in on herself, a hurt little ball.

She'd been cold even in her dreams.


	20. Chapter 20

She'd struggled out of her blankets at dawn, shivering miserably, thinking that she was about to throw up again.

Her entire body had been coated in clammy perspiration, her bright hair matted and stuck to her neck and temples in damp, flame-colored tendrils.

Her breaths had been coming short and erratic as a result of the shudders that wracked her. But despite the fact that the nausea was bad enough that she'd thought vomiting might actually bring her some relief, it had apparently not been bad enough to actually trigger a bout of retching.

It had simply settled in and stayed with her; a constant feeling of dull wretchedness at the very periphery of her awareness.

The idea of getting her blankets properly rolled up and back onto her horse had been so overwhelming, so thoroughly in the realm of the impossible, that she hadn't even attempted it. She'd dragged them around to the far side of the boulder instead, where no one else from the group was likely to encounter them, and had left them there, hoping that amid all the hustle and bustle of breaking camp, nobody would notice their absence.

And nobody had.

The notion of eating anything had seemed as pointless, undesirable, and overall impossible as the idea of packing all her belongings back onto her horse. She'd resolved to at least drink as much water as possible, but as it tuned out, "as much as possible" had been two sips. She literally could force no more down her throat.

But this was it. The final stretch. She'd be home in just a few hours. So she'd forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, to cross to her horse, and to drag herself up into the saddle.

It was time to go home, and everything would be all right once she got there.

She just had to get home.

OOOOO

And so it was that she was riding, no more than a couple of hours out from the castle, toward the back of the group, about as far from Gunther as she could manage to get.

They were so close to home. _So close_ – she recognized this terrain, she'd been out this far numerous times on horseback – and had ranged out considerably further than this, _hundreds_ of times on Dragon.

She was literally, practically in her own backyard.

Which made it all the more bitterly unfair when the moment came that she realized – she was done. Her body was well and truly done.

It came as a surging wave of… well just of _wrongness_ that seemed to start right in the center of her, and then rolled out toward her extremities; toward all of them, it seemed, at once.

For just a second she stiffened with a gasp. She had a panicked instant of _oh no, no not now, please not_ –

And then everything just gave out. She was sliding sideways off her horse and then she was falling and then –

 _God, why_ now!? _Gunther is going to_ –

Impact.


	21. Chapter 21

Pain blazed through her - it literally stole her breath. Beyond the crash and roar of the pain that was ravaging her body - it occurred to her distantly that she must have bruised or even cracked a rib when she hit the ground - she could hear protesting whinnies as horses were suddenly reined up. Shouts, and the muted thuds of boots hitting the packed earth of the roadway.

She made a single, heaving attempt to push herself up - and failed spectacularly. Groaning, she rolled onto her side, wrapped her arms around her middle, and lay there, barely half conscious, struggling to breathe. Her coppery hair fanned out about her head and splashed across her face; a rumpled wave of color, a dying flame.

There was chaos around her, but then a single bright, clear thread cut through the confusion, and that was Gunther, running back from the front of the group, moving faster than he'd ever moved in his life, shouting her name in a voice so frantic that it was barely recognizable.

The next thing she knew he was right down on the ground beside her, stretched out nearly full-length next to her, reaching to push the hair out of her face with shaking fingers.

"Jane. _Jane_. Oh, no. I knew something was wrong, damnit, _damnit_ , I _KNEW_ something was –"

She blinked hard, trying to keep him in focus. With an immense effort, she dragged one hand away from her injured ribcage and reached up to catch at his wrist.

"Gun…ther." It was all she could do to force words out between her short, sharp, agonized breaths – the result of her fall – and the fact that her teeth were still rattling from cold. "Suh…sorry. I. Am so sorry. I should have…should…uhv…tuh-told you that I… I…"

"Jane, stop. _Stop_. It is all right. _You_ are all right. Everything will.. will be –" he broke off, fighting for composure.

"Sorry," she whispered again, miserable, overwhelemed, hurt to the core of her being. She squeezed her eyes shut, against the pain, against his stricken face, against _everything_. "So sorry, Gunther."

"Shh. Jane. Not important now. Just tell me – for the love of God, would you _please_ just tell me – what the hell is _wrong_ with you!? _Please!_ "

She was so compromised in that moment that the only things that came to mind were the things that were right on the surface – the things that were filling her entire perception of the world in that instant.

"Hard to… bree…breathe," she stammered. "And cold. Gunther I… am so so… cuh-cold."

One of his hands pressed firmly to her forehead then, and he immediately let loose with a string of expletives so astonishing that her eyes flew back open again. Only to be further amazed by what she saw.

He looked on the verge of _tears_. Could that be right? Surely not. She decided her senses were failing her. She was not seeing what she thought she was seeing.

"Gunther… whuh… what…?"

"You are not cold," he said flatly – but it was a flatness that indicated he was working his way back around toward anger, and with uncanny speed at that. "You are not _cold_ , Jane, you are on _fire!_ Damn it, woman, you are burning _alive!_ How long… how long have… and why – _why_ did you not –"

But he abruptly broke off, because just at that moment it all became too much for Jane. The world started spiraling away from her, her eyes began to close again, only she wasn't slamming them shut this time, they were closing on their own... and Gunther realized that he was losing her – either to unconsciousnes or to something worse, something he didn't even want to _contemplate_.

"JANE!"

Not knowing how badly she'd been injured in the fall from her horse, he was aware that he shouldn't move her – but in that moment his panic eclisped reason and the next thing he knew he was gripping her, hard, by both shoulders, shifting her onto her back.

And Jane's entire world exploded in shards of agony.

At least Gunther accomplished this much; he most assuredly got a reaction out of her.


	22. Chapter 22

Her whole body arched, back bowing right off the ground and bruised ribs be damned. Her eyes flew wide in shock, her hands clenching so hard that her nails gouged into the sun-baked, almost entirely unyeilding surface of the road.

Her shoulder – oh God, her _shoulder!_ Distantly she registered that someone, somewhere, was screaming on and on – screaming as if the world were ending.

Oh, wait. That was her.

She tried to rein it in, but for the longest moment she couldn't, she just literally… could not… stop screaming.

Then Gunther's hands were on her face, both of them, framing it, holding it, and he brought his own face down until they were nearly forehead to forehead.

"Jane! _Jane!_ Jane stop, come back, come _back_ , I know you can, I need you with me now, _Jane!_ "

She bit down, hard, on her already bruised and swollen lower lip; managed to choke off her cries. And lay there panting up at him in a swirling daze of pain. It took her a moment to register what he was saying now.

" – one? Jane, which one, which _one!?_ "

Which shoulder, he meant. Based on her reaction to him grabbing her a moment ago, he finally understood where she was hurt. Not how, or why, or when, but he had sure-God figured out _where_.

"Luh… left," she gasped.

And then he pulled away and she was left blinking at the sky. She felt him fumbling with her jerkin, trying to unlace it, peel it back, but his fingers didn't seem to be working properly; they were clumsy, wooden, entirely graceless – seemed barely to be attached to him at all. He was making no progress.

Another shudder wracked her and he swore again, then grabbed for his dagger and simply went to work cutting the garment away. She dragged in a shallow, hitching breath as he peeled back the stiff leather, finally revealing the wound.

For a long moment he simply stared at her shoulder. Her eyes were trying to glaze over but she forced them, with great difficulty, to focus on his face again. And what she saw there stunned her.

He'd been flushed just a second ago, hectic splotches of color lying across his cheeks, but that was all gone now. The color had fallen out of him in a heartbeat's worth of time, in the time it took him to draw in a ragged breath of his own.

He had gone instantaneously ashen. Jane had never seen it happen so fast. She'd had no idea it _could_ happen so fast.

He was positively _grey_.

And then the explosion came.

"Oh my… GOD, what… is this what it looks…" he was barely coherent. "Jane, what – when did this – sweet merciful God, shot!? _SHOT_ , Jane, you were _shot!?_ When – wha – when did… and you – you never – are you _insane_ , what – what in _God's name_ were you –"

"Sorry," she whispered wretchedly. It seemed to be all she could think of to say. It did nothing but spur Gunther to fresh heights of fury.

" _You think 'sorry' fixes something like this!?_ You – I – I cannot – even – of all the irresponsible – do you actually _have a death wish!?_ What were –" He reached for her shoulders again as if wanting to grab and _shake_ her, wounded or _not_ , deathly _ill_ or not, barely managing to stop himself in time. He was seething. He was beyond reason.

"I _told_ you! I TOLD you that night how I – what it would do to me if – How could you _DO_ this!? HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!?"

She had no answer, but that was all right; she was spared having to even attempt to respond because that was when the laughter began.

OOOOO

Gunther's head whipped toward the sound, eyes narrowing, lips unconsciously drawing back from his teeth in a feral snarl. He didn't understand this, this wholly unexpected and _grossly_ incongruous sound, but he instinctively grasped _this_ much about it: it was not good.

No, not good at all.

It was one of the prisoners – one of the outlaws. And he was laughing fit to burst.

Despite being put instantly on guard, though, nothing – _nothing_ – could have prepared Gunther for what the man said… once he was able to master himself to the point where he could say _anything_ , that was.

"Do this… do this to _you!_ " the man gasped, still positively wheezing with mirth, his words intersperced with uncontrollable little titters.

"Do this to _YOU_ , boy!? You stupid… blind… ungrateful fool!"

Gunther actually growled, rising to his feet. He had just started to move toward the prisoner when the man's next words stopped him cold. Sent him reeling. Plunged him into a depth of sheer, panicked, guilt-shot horror that he'd never even imagined existed.

"To you. Did it _to you_ , you say! Hah! That girl took the arrow _for_ you – I saw the whole thing! Dove in front of it – saved your _life_ – lost her own. Because she _is_ dying – make no mistake about that."


	23. Chapter 23

All of Jane and Gunther's men had dismounted by now. "Get him down!" Gunther barked at the one nearest to the prisoner. The man hauled the brigand, none-too-gently, off the horse he'd been riding, and a second later Gunther was nose-to-nose with him.

"What are you talking about?" he grated out through clenched teeth.

"Green Jack is what I am talking about," the outlaw replied, an infuriating smirk playing about his lips. "Or _who_. See, 'twas Jack that shot the girl there, and Jack, well, he is a queer one. Likes to add a little something _special_ to the tips of his arrows, does old Jack."

Gunther literally staggered where he stood, as if he'd been struck a physical blow. "You… are you talking about –"

"Poison, aye." The man giggled again; a high-pitched, girlish, and decidedly _unbalanced_ little sound. "One of Green Jack's arrows so much as scratches you, it matters nothing if he hit you in the heart or in the toe. Sooner or later, well," he gestured toward Jane, lying where Gunther had left her on the ground. "There you go. You ought to be singing praises to all that is holy – it was meant to be _you!_ " And he broke into those horrible, unsettling titters again.

Both of Gunther's hands rose up, seemingly of their own volition, to clench in his already-mussed hair. He had no conscious awareness of this fact whatsoever. He was… he was…

There were no words. No words for what he was, none.

He was trying to assimilate this barrage of information and he couldn't, he just _couldn't_ , could not process it, could not make sense of it, could _not_ come to terms with it, no, not in a million years, come to terms with _this?_ No, no, no, no. _No_.

Poison – a poisoned arrow and – _him_ , meant for _him_ and – and someone had been aiming a bow and arrow at him and he hadn't _seen!?_ How could he not have SEEN!? Archery was… was his… he had always been gifted at it, had always been better than Jane, a source of considerable smugness for him when he'd been younger, and so if anyone should have noticed there was a goddamned _archer_ present it should have been _him_ and yet… and yet he hadn't seen and she _had_ , she had, and…

And then she hadn't _told_ him, why, _why_ hadn't she told him, and the answer was there, of course; _right_ there, ready and waiting, just begging for him to pick it up and examine it like some colorful bauble found in the street, something that he simply _must_ get a closer look at even though he knows, he _knows_ , that it's dangerous, and razor-sharp and… and poisoned. She hadn't told him because he'd shut her out that morning, he'd made it crystal clear that he hadn't wanted to speak to her, and he'd only been doing it in an attempt to protect her, but still, _he_ was the one who'd set the tone for their communications that day – or lack thereof. Oh God.

And the way he'd been treating her _since_ –

 _Oh, GOD_.

It occurred to him, much _much_ too late, to wonder what his actions must have looked like – must have _signified_ – to Jane. The ability to step outside his own experience and understand how others might be interpreting his actions was not a skill that came easily to Gunther. He was not, by nature, terribly empathetic. And he honestly hadn't even considered how Jane might respond to his rejection – because he personally knew it hadn't been a rejection at all.

He'd only been trying to protect her! That was all he'd wanted to do. But he'd been misguided, _so_ misguided, _fatally_ misguided if the outlaw was telling the truth. And Gunther thought that he was. His words and manner had a distinct and unmistakable quality of _insanity_ to them – but they also had a quality of _truth_. Mad he might be, but not a liar – not about this.

God _help_ him. God help _Jane_. Please, oh please…

He quite suddenly found himself fighting back a wave of bile. He literally felt in danger of throwing up.

Gasping like a drowning man, he had to drag in several deep, hitching breaths before he felt capable of even attempting to speak again.

"You knew… all along… from the moment it happened… and did nothing, _said_ nothing!? You just watched – watched her sicken – knowing _full well_ … and kept it to _yourself!?_ "

The man shrugged a little; gave Gunther a lopsided grin. "Entertainment, my friend. And _you_ … the way you have been… _haranguing_ her! And her suffering in silence all the while - that girl has enough stubborn pride for _ten_ people! Best entertainment that has come my way in a very long time. Maybe ever."

Gunther roared – there was no other word for it; he actually, literally _roared_ – and a split second later the prisoner was flat on his back in the road with Gunther on top of him, _straddling_ him, both hands fisted in the grimy material of the man's tunic, faces so close together that their noses nearly bumped.

The man's breath was fetid; it rolled over Gunther in a stinking, greasy wave.

So perhaps it was a good thing that Gunther was breathing at the very top of his lungs – shallow, rapid, panting breaths that betrayed the depth of his absolute panic.

"Tell me," he gritted out, "how to fix this. You tell me how to help her because I promise you, I _promise you_ , if she dies you die, so help me God."

The man stared up in silence for a moment. It almost looked, for a space of heartbeats, as if he were starting to grasp the gravity of his situation… but then he merely began tittering again.

"You actually _love_ that girl, eh?" he demanded. " _Runty_ little thing like that!? I think that awful orange _hair_ must weigh more than all the rest of her put –"

But he was cut off as Gunther grabbed him by the collar, yanked his head several inches up off the ground – and then slammed it back down again, hard.

"TELL ME! HOW DO I SAVE HER!? WHAT DO I _DO!?_ "

The man dragged in a hitching, labored breath. Grimaced; spat sideways. "That," he said at length, "is the best part of all – the very _best_. Because Green Jack, as I said, is a queer one. Every poisoned arrow in his quiver has the antidote built right into it – a secret chamber inside the hollow shaft. You simply remove the arrowhead, tip the contents of the shaft down the victim's throat, and as long as nothing vital was pierced, behold; all is well! It amuses Jack to play God that way. To have the power of determining someone's fate not only when he decides whether to shoot in the first place - but then again a second time, _after_ the person has been shot. So if the arrow were here, well, I cannot say for certain; the girl is already far gone. But there would at least be a chance of saving her. Except… except… except that the arrow is _not_ here because she pulled it out and threw it away because _she did not want you to know she had been shot! Shot instead of YOU!_ It is just… too… _funny!_ " And then he was gone in laughter again, braying great hearty gusts of it up at the sky.

OOOOO

(A/N: Well. It's all out in the open now! Longest chapter yet :)


	24. Chapter 24

Gunther loosed a hoarse cry of mingled rage and despair – then rocked back on his heels and went for the dagger at his hip. He had just time enough to register that it wasn't there – he'd left it lying beside Jane – when two of his men, realizing his deadly intent, virtually tackled him and wrestled him to the ground.

"Sir Gunther, _no!_ Do not, the filth is not worth it! Let the king deal with him!"

He shook them off, but did not lunge for the outlaw again. Just sat up, pulled up his knees, planted his elbows on them and dropped his face into his hands, a textbook illustration of hopelessness incarnate. Behind him, one of the men delivered a swift kick to the still-snickering outlaw's ribcage, effectively silencing him.

There was no telling how long Gunther might have sat there like that, but then the last of his men, who'd gone to kneel by Jane when Gunther'd left her side, shouted his name in a voice that sounded just barely on the near side of panic. Gunther raised his head; his hair hung in his eyes until he pushed it back with an absent, almost mechanical gesture. He gulped in a shaking breath, focused on the man who was calling him; then shifted his gaze to Jane.

And then he was moving, scrabbling over the few yards of roadway that separated them. She had curled into a tight, wounded little ball on her side, knees to chest as close as she could manage. The man beside her was holding an open waterskin, but he answered Gunther's questioning look with a resigned shake of his head. "I tried, but… she will take nothing." It seemed to Gunther that he could actually, _physically_ feel his heart twist within his chest.

"Jane." He pulled her into his arms, arranged her crossways in his lap. _God_ , she was hot. She was baking. She was _radiating_ heat. She whimpered and buried her face in his shoulder, and an awful, enveloping sense of inertia crashed over him. It was stealing his breath, suffocating him. He could hear someone muttering – "No. No. No no no no no Jane no."

Oh, wait.

That was him.

What was he supposed to do now? What, what could he _do?_ He couldn't think, he couldn't… move, he could barely draw breath. He could sense time stretching out ahead of him – days, weeks, months. _Years_. Time that, according to the laughing bandit, wouldn't include Jane. He didn't want it. He didn't want _any_ of it, not a single, solitary minute. The weight of all that unwanted time was smashing him into the dirt, grinding him down, down.

He dipped his head, dropped his face into her wild corona of hair. Inhaled her scent. How much poison was spreading through her body right now? How much, coursing through her veins? He found himself suddenly, ravenously greedy for it. It was supposed to be _his_ , after all – she had, in effect, stolen it from him! Stupid, thoughtless, impulsive, reckless…beautiful, courageous, loyal Jane.

Was there any way he could take it into himself, enough to do the job? Enough to go _with_ her? If he sealed his lips to hers the way he had three nights ago, if he kissed her like that again, deeply, sucking on her lower lip, nibbling it, making her gasp and moan and dig her nails into his flesh the way she had that night, could he glean enough poison then? Or if he dragged his lips lower, from the corner of her mouth to the line of her jaw, and then down her neck to nuzzle at the hollow where her shoulder met her throat? Would it be enough _then?_ She'd been burning in his arms that night and she was burning in his arms now but how much, how very much, had changed.

A great, shuddering, hitching gasp ripped through him and he realized, almost detachedly, that he was crying.

 _[Stop it._ Stop _it. Pull yourself together, she is not dead yet!]_

Well perhaps not yet, but it was obviously only a matter of –

 _[Why are you thinking like that? What is the_ matter _with you!? She took that wound for you, she is_ dying _for_ YOU! _And you are just going to give up on HER!? That is the best you can do, that is all_ she deserves? _She would_ never _give up on you – NEVER!]_

Slowly, shakily, he raised his head. Dragged the back of one grimy hand across his eyes, scrubbing away his tears, faintly astonished by how many tears there _were_. He sought the eyes of the man kneeling beside him, swallowed hard. His thoughts were so scattered, the sense of helplessness pressing down on him so great. He had no idea if he was making the right choice, or a catastrophic one – but any choice was better than none, right? _Any_ action taken had to be better than hopeless inertia. _Had_ to be.

"Take her," he said. His voice was so croaky that he had to stop, clear his throat, start again. "Take her for a moment. There is something I have to do."

OOOOO

(A/N: The Laughing Bandit: Best. Pub name. Ever. Am I right? :)


	25. Chapter 25

Carefully, he shifted Jane over to the other man. Giving her away like that _hurt_ , hurt worse than any other pain he'd ever sustained in his life. It was like giving away a part of _himself;_ the best, most _precious_ part of himself.

He stood, walked the couple of steps to her horse, and took hold of the sword that was lashed to her saddlebag. It was a very special, very unique sword that could, when the circumstances required it, fulfill a very special and very unique function. He didn't know if it would work. He didn't know what the distance limit was on using the dragon sword to summon Jane's faithful friend, if there even _was_ a distance limit. But he knew he had to try, and he was cautiously optimistic that Dragon would receive the summons. They really were pretty close to home, all things considered.

A moment later he re-secured Jane's sword, not to her horse this time but to his own; he was fairly certain that he'd need to use it again soon. Then he turned back toward Jane, praying with every fiber of his being that his summons worked and that Dragon would even now be winging his way toward them.

"Jane's horse," he said without preamble to the man who currently had Jane in his arms. He was holding her awkwardly, as if unsure quite what to do with her, and Gunther literally _ached_ to feel the weight of her in his _own_ arms again. He hunkered down and held them out for her, gathering her close.

"It will be the least tired because Jane weighs the least of us. Mount up. I am going to hand her up to you and _you_ are going to ride for the castle, faster than you have ever ridden in your life. Hopefully Dragon will be heading this way, and he travels much more quickly than any horse, so God willing you will encounter him soon. He should stop when he sees you; he will recognize Jane, even from high above. Have him carry her the rest of the way home, but you have to tell him – you _have_ to tell him – that as soon as he delivers her to the castle he must fly my back-trail and find me. He will not want to leave Jane but you tell him – _make him understand_ – if he wants her to live _he has to come after me_. I am going to require his speed; it is essential."

The man got to his feet. Gunther did likewise, bringing Jane up with him, resettling her in his arms.

"And after?" the man was asking. "After I give her to the d –"

"Turn around and head back this way, to assist with getting the prisoners to the castle." Gunther looked over at the other men. "Which is what _you_ will be continuing with, meantime. Understand?"

They nodded, looking grim. The man who would transport Jane swung up onto her horse; settled himself; reached down to take her.

Gunther almost couldn't find it in himself to give her over a second time, however necessary it might be. He glanced down for a moment. Jane was hanging almost entirely lifeless, now, in his arms. Her breathing had become so shallow he could barely track it anymore. He shifted her, bringing her face up close to his own, and pressed a gentle, lingering kiss to her lips. They were dry and cracked and wholly unresponsive.

He started to hand her up, then paused and brought his lips to her ear. "I love you, Jane Turnkey. I _love_ you and now you need to wait for me. Wait for me to come and do not give up, do you hear me? You keep on fighting this and _do not_ give up, only _weak little girls give up_."

There. If there was anything left of Jane at all that was able to hear and understand his words, she would find the challenge he'd just issued _far_ more compelling than any lover's plea.

He gave her over then, his movements jerky and disjointed because he was _forcing_ his body to comply with an order it wanted _nothing_ to do with; on a primal, bone-deep level there was only one thing he wanted and that was to hold onto her forever, to _never_ let her go. But doing that would cost her whatever slim chance of survival she might still have. So he let her be lifted away from him, and a bare second later the horse was galloping off, raising a dust cloud that swirled briefly, but chokingly, around him. He had never felt so desperately, hopelessly bereft in all his life. When the dust settled, the horse was out of sight. He turned then, walked to his own animal, and mounted up.

"Sir Gunther!" called one of his remaining men as he turned his steed, facing back toward the woods, the clearing, the place where the skirmish had taken place, where everything had changed. Where he was deathly afraid that his life, in any meaningful sense, had ended. "Sir Gunther, what are _you_ doing? Where will you go?"

"I am going," he said with flat resolve, "to get that goddamned arrow back."


	26. Chapter 26

_She is lying flat on her back and staring dazedly up at Gunther, who is shouting and shouting and_ shouting _at her – he is incandescent with rage. Which is exactly why he was never supposed to know! Damn it,_ damn _it, he was not supposed to…_

 _And then the laughter starts – horrible, persistent laughter dancing around the periphery of her awareness, scraping –_ grating _– a terrible, disconcerting sound. It is the laughter of a lunatic, the laughter of the damned. And then Gunther is gone, and –_

[Blink]

 _And then he is back again, no longer just crouching over her, either; now he is gathering her into his arms, holding her, cradling her, lifting her, and she feels his lips moving against her ear. He is whispering something, but what?_ What?

[Blink]

 _A horse moving under her, galloping full out, running like the wind. Arms around her, holding her tight; strong arms, masculine arms, but not Gunther's arms. Barely conscious, she still knows this with stark, immediate clarity. The body she's pressed against is not his – even the_ scent _of this man is… not Gunther. The world feels distant, clouded over, but the panic that is suddenly rising in her is clear and urgent and breathtakingly huge. She's not even curious about who it_ is _that's holding her – only one thing matters and that one thing is that it isn't Gunther. Where is Gunther!? WHERE IS –_

[Blink]

 _Wind. Great, buffeting gusts of it. Wingbeats. And a voice she knows; a voice she_ loves _, though it is most certainly not Gunther's._

 _"_ _Jane!"_

 _The horse is being reined up. Dragon is landing beside them, throwing up clods of dirt as he does so because it is a hasty landing, a clumsy,_ panicked _landing, and then his face is hanging over her, blocking out the sky, blocking out_ everything.

 _The horse is skittering and shying, prancing sideways, barely controllable. It is terrified. That doesn't surprise Jane in the least. What does surprise her is the expression on_ Dragon's _face; he looks every bit as horror-stricken as the animal beneath her, if not more so. She tries to raise a hand, to press it to his snout, both to give and receive a little bit of comfort. She tries, but she can't. She just can't, and –_

[Blink]

 _Commotion. Footsteps hurrying, voices shouting. Blur of activity all around her. She is being eased down to the ground with incredible gentleness and care. She fights to open her eyes but when she does, the mad jumble of faces and ramparts and shadows and sky is so overwhelming that she lets them fall shut again almost instantly. It is more information than she is capable of processing at the moment; she is dizzy with it._

 _So she senses rather than sees it when Dragon takes off again – he is flying away, leaving her here. Gunther has left her and now Dragon has left her and she doesn't understand why,_ why? _What is going on, will_ everyone _abandon her? She's so scared, dear God in heaven she's so scared and she feels so wrong. Just deeply and fundamentally wrong, wrong on every level, and – and –_

[Blink]

 _Faces above her – hanging. Hovering. Faces she knows, or at least, faces she feels she_ should _know. She can't name them, though; she can't make her mind work that well, though she tries._

 _Young woman with a long, thick plait of dark hair. Gentle hands sponging Jane's forehead. Huge dark eyes, brimming with tears._

 _Older woman; pale, severe. Hair pulled tightly back. Manner of someone who is usually quite competent; all brisk efficiency. But she doesn't look brisk now. She looks scared half to death, completely overwhelmed and just…_ lost _, somehow._

 _Young man in blue. Head in his hands, sandy blond hair spilling through his fingers. She cannot even see his face, but she doesn't need to see his expression to understand how distraught he is. Presently he takes one of_ her _hands and presses it to his lips, and –_

[Blink.]

 _And there are more, they come and go, but she feels so separate from all of them. They are so pale… ethereal… they seem downright… well…_ ghostly _._

Are _they ghosts?_

 _…_ _Or is_ she?


	27. Chapter 27

_She freezes. She burns. She freezes again. Successive waves of heat and chill crash over her – there is no time in between to catch her breath, to gather herself, to prepare for the next onslaught._

 _The fever rages and she tries to hold her own against it but it is a losing battle. She can feel her reserves of strength giving out, when she is aware enough to feel anything. It is so exhausting, and it feels so futile, to even attempt to mount a defense._

 _This is bigger than she is, so much bigger._

[You keep on fighting this.]

 _She just wants it over._

[Do not give up.]

 _She just wants to rest._

[Only weak little girls _GIVE UP!_ ]

 _Those words… in Gunther's voice. Did he actually say them, or is it just hallucinations, her mind playing tricks on her? She doesn't know. But she's_ not _weak. Not weak, she's_ NOT _. She decides to try and hold on a little longer._

OOOOO

And then he was there. Incomprehensibly, _impossibly_ , but inarguably there.

She was shivering all the time now – sometimes from heat, sometimes from cold, but shivering constantly either way. Although neither the heat nor the cold seemed nearly as intense anymore. Truth be told, _nothing_ seemed intense anymore. Everything seemed… muffled, somehow. Removed from her. Or maybe _she_ was the one being removed form everything around her – including the sensory feedback from her own body.

She'd been drifting in and out of consciousness – even those periods that could loosely be referred to as her "awake times" had a dreamy, surreal quality to them.

It was during one of these intervals that she heard a commotion in the courtyard, and her mother, who'd been sitting at her bedside, shot to her feet and bolted across the room and out the door, leaving Jane briefly alone. She was bewildered… but only distantly, passingly so. So little that went on around her seemed to matter anymore.

A moment later came the sound of someone virtually hurtling himself up the steps of her tower room. Lying on her back, she turned her head toward the door just as he came bursting through it. Her eyes widened, becoming a little more aware, a little more alert, at the sight of him.

Dear _God_ , he was a mess. Filthy; exhausted; dirty hair hanging in his eyes, and his eyes themselves – they were _haunted_ , and bore dark smudges of fatigue underneath. He looked as if he'd aged ten years since she'd seen him last. Come to think of it, when _had_ she seen him last?

"You look… terrible," she whispered as he crossed the room toward her. Her voice was nothing more than a painful, raspy croak.

He was actually brought up short – for a second or two, anyway – by the complete unexpectedness of her remark. He stopped in his tracks, staring at her, drinking her in with his eyes, the fact that she was still alive – still _coherent_ , even. His whole body sagged with relief then; he actually looked in danger of falling to his knees in that moment. But then he seemed to gather himself, shook his head and sank slowly down on the edge of her bed, an awful, grim little smile twisting his lips.

"To be perfectly honest, I have seen you looking better yourself, Jane Turnkey. But here – I have brought you something nonetheless."


	28. Chapter 28

"What –" she looked down at his hands, noticing for the first time that he was holding something. Blinked hard, her brows drawing together, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Her vision was trying to slide out of focus – she was starting to float away again.

Then she realized what it was, and her whole body stiffened with a hurt little gasp.

"Get that away from me!" Her voice was tinged with hysteria.

"Jane, it is all r–"

She shook her head violently, eyes glued on the arrow in Gunther's hands, an arrow still stained with her blood.

" _Jane_ , just –"

But she didn't even hear him. She was panicking. Where had he _gotten_ that horrible thing!? She'd thrown it away, she _knew_ she'd thrown it away! He had never been supposed to find it! So what – how had he – and why in God's name would he bring it _here?_ What kind of sadistic point was he trying to make, what the hell was he trying to _prove!?_

Rallying all of her flagging strength, she struggled up onto her elbows, intending to scoot as far away from him as her bed would allow – but her sick and injured body was having none of it.

She collapsed back against her pillow with a hitching little exhalation, both arms wrapping unconsciously about herself, snugged tight against her aching ribs. Her breath was coming in short, sharp, painful little bursts through gritted teeth and although she didn't intend to make any noise, a hurt little whimper escaped her; she was too deeply compromised to suppress it.

" _Jane!_ "

If she couldn't actually move away from him, at least she could turn her face away, and that's what she did, slamming her eyes closed for good measure. She wanted nothing to do with him while he had that awful thing in his hands.

 _Nothing_.

OOOOO

"Jane, please." His voice cracked. "Do not shut me out. Jane! There is no time for this!" He grasped her chin and gently but firmly turned her head back toward him. She lacked the strength to resist him, but she steadfastly refused to open her eyes.

"Please trust me." His voice was ragged; frayed around the edges. " _Please_ trust me. Jane, I…" he swallowed convulsively, fighting the rising tide of panic that wanted to carry him away. There was no time, no time, no _time_. "I know I have not… have not earned it. _God_ knows I let you down. But Jane, I am begging you. _Please_. Please?"

No response. The outlaw's words echoed in his head – _that girl has enough stubborn pride for_ ten _people_. God help him, it was true. And he was so, so terrified that he'd lose her because of it.

 _[No. Not because of that. This is your fault and your fault and your fault, Gunther Breech. Yours.]_

His breath whooshed out in a shuddery sigh. He hadn't even realized he'd been _holding_ it. He let go of her chin. Grasped the arrow firmly in both hands and broke the head from the shaft with a decisive snap.

The shaft was indeed hollow. He covered the hole with his thumb and gave it a tentative little shake, praying that when he removed it, the pad of his thumb would be wet.

And it was.

There _was_ liquid inside the arrow's shaft.

 _The antidote was there_.

And – his mouth pressed into a hard, grim line – he would _force_ it down her throat if he had to. It would irrevocably destroy _any_ slim chance he might still have of winning back her trust… but he'd do it anyway. He'd rather have her alive and loathing him than the alternative.

He rather felt he deserved to be loathed, in any case.

But when he looked up at her again, he found her looking right _back_ at him – with a surprisingly steady gaze, given the circumstances.

"You broke it," she whispered, sounding more puzzled than anything. "What… are you _doing?_ "

"There is something… something inside that will help you," he said, praying frantically, _please please please let that be so_.

"How can a broken arrow h–"

"Trust me. Just… all right? Please?"

Uncertainty flashed in her eyes, but then she nodded. It was a tiny, barely-there ghost of a nod, but he thought it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen her do.

He slipped one hand carefully beneath her head, her sweat-dampened hair tangling around his fingers, then raised it gently, a couple of inches off the pillow.

"There is liquid inside. I need you to drink it." And because nothing less than perfect honesty would suffice at this point, he added, "I do not know what it will taste like, but if I had to guess, I would say foul."

Despite everything, the utter horror of the situation, her lips quirked into the tiniest hint of a smile.

"All right," she whispered, and he tipped the arrow's contents into her mouth.


	29. Chapter 29

Her whole body jerked, and she immediately started to choke. She tried to wrench her head away, but he was having none of it.

"No, Jane!" he shouted, dropping the arrow and using his hand to hold her mouth forcibly closed. "Swallow it, you have to swallow it! _Make_ yourself!"

"Mmmph!" She whipped her head from side to side, trying to free herself, but he held on as if… well, as if her life depended on it. He was _not_ going to lose this fight.

Finally she gulped and he immediately let her go; she fell back against her pillows, gasping and shuddering.

"Jane? _Jane!_ " He bent close over her and she surprised him by reaching up, wrapping both her arms around him, and giving a single hard yank that caused him, caught off-guard as he was, to literally fall on top of her.

There was no way, _no WAY_ she should have had the strength to do that. God, this girl was _amazing_. And if he lost her… if he lost her, he'd be a dead man walking. There was nothing else for him, not after Jane.

She was clinging to him desperately, her hands fisted in his jerkin, her face buried in his shoulder, shaking like a leaf. Without any conscious thought whatsoever, his own arms wrapped around her and he found himself holding her just as tightly as she was holding him – perhaps even more so.

At the same time he shifted onto his side, bringing Jane with him, so that he was no longer crushing her down into the bed. He'd simply have to trust that if it was hurting her to be on her side, or to be held this tightly, she'd let him know. Because nothing else was going to induce him to let go of her now.

She didn't tell him that he was hurting her, and she didn't ask him to release her. She merely pressed her face (warm, it was so warm, _too_ warm) against him even harder, as though actually trying to burrow _into_ him, and when she _did_ speak, her voice was so badly muffled that she was barely understandable.

But he'd known her forever and loved her for at least half that long, so he _did_ understand her, perfectly.

"Why… did you… make… me _do_ that!?" she panted brokenly.

"I am sorry. I am so sorry, Jane." He raised one hand to the back of her head and began absently stroking her tangled hair. "I knew it probably… would not be good." She shuddered again, violently. "But it was meant to help you. It is _going_ to help you." He had to believe it. He _did_ believe it. The alternative was simply unacceptable. "Now you just have to rest and let it work. All right?"

"Will you stay with me?" Such uncertainty in her voice.

God, it hurt. His heart.

It _hurt_.

"Yes. For as long as you want me to."

"But I mean… like this. Will you, will you… hold me? I am not as cold when you hold me."

"Yes, Jane. Forever."

"It was guh…going away." He realized that her teeth were starting to chatter again. "The cuh…c-cold. The hot too. It was… was all… fading. _Everything_ was… fuh-fading. But now it… now it…"

"It is coming back? Everything is coming back?"

She nodded against him.

"But that is _good_." _Let it be good, oh God please_ please _let it be good_. "I think things seemed to be fading because _you_ were fading. And now things seem to be coming back because _you_ are coming back. You are going to fight through this, Jane. You _are_. Right?"

"If I… cuh... can…"

"You can. You _WILL_."

"And you will stay?"

"You mother would have to chase me off with a stick."

"She will try."

She wasn't joking either. The flat certainty in her voice actually surprised a laugh out of him. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, but she didn't feel it; she'd lost consciousness again.

And so he settled in to wait for her to recover.

Only...

It didn't happen.


	30. Chapter 30

(A/N: well, this is a _little_ sooner than I'd planned to update, but y'all was freakin out, so here ya go!)

OOOOO

At least, not right away.

There was a long, long, _agonizingly_ long period of uncertainty first, as she fought desperately against a fever that seemed bent on consuming her, antidote or no antidote.

It was a period of torture for Gunther, the like of which he'd never experienced before, had never even _imagined_. Half the time, he was left in silence to grapple with his own guilt-ravaged conscience, the outlaw's words – _I cannot say for certain; the girl is already far gone_ – running through his mind over and over and _over_ again, an endless loop. Hundreds of times. _Thousands_.

He had recovered the antidote. And it had been no easy feat. And valuable time had been sacrificed because Dragon hadn't been able to find him under the heavy tree cover; he'd had to circle overhead until Gunther had emerged from the thickest part of the woods and used Jane's sword again to broadcast his location. And riding back on Dragon had been the second most terrifying experience of his life. ( _The_ most terrifying experience of his life was what he was going through right the hell _now._ ) But he'd done it. He'd recovered that goddamned antidote _and_ made her drink it.

And yet all he could think was... what if it didn't even matter in the end? What if it was _just too late?_

Then, when he managed to subdue that voice, the outlaw's terrible laughing _voice_ , for even a moment or two at a time, the _images_ came.

 _Jane standing there, just_ standing _there, in the aftermath of the skirmish, not even responding when he'd called her name, looking lost in thought, or maybe just lost_ period _. And wrong, he'd known it even then, she'd looked so_ wrong _somehow, but when he'd asked her she'd said she was fine, so what had he done, had he followed his instinct and pressed harder? No, he'd accused her of_ daydreaming _and had shouted at her to do something_ useful _and pick up her goddamned_ sword _._

 _And that had only been the beginning._

 _Jane near the fire that night, sitting apart from him - apart from_ everyone _\- silent and hunched forward and hugging herself as if trying to hold herself together by force. And he'd assumed she'd been sulking. For God's sake!_ Sulking!

 _Jane on her knees in the bushes, violently ill. That must have been when the poison had really begun to go to work on her._

 _Jane refusing to eat anything –_ anything! _– during their homeward journey. Barely even drinking water._

 _Jane dismounting at their final campsite, dismounting and then just_ standing _there, her face buried in the neck of her beast, as if she'd simply been enjoying a moment of quiet companionship with her animal at the end of a long day's ride. But she'd been holding onto the reins so tightly – her knuckles had been_ white, _she'd been holding on so tightly. As if – in hindsight it was horrifyingly clear – as if those reins had been the_ only _thing holding her_ up _._

 _Jane collapsing as she'd carried wood for the fire. There hadn't been any root, she hadn't tripped – her legs had just_ buckled; _he'd seen the whole thing._

 _And then – worse than any of the others – worse than_ all _the others put_ together _– the sight of Jane lying crumpled in the road. It had felt like being plunged into icy water, having it close over the top of his head. He hadn't been able to_ breathe _. He'd hardly been able to breathe_ since _._

 _Without question, that had been the single most horrifying instant of his life. He was, in fact, convinced that that single instant had taken years_ off _his life._

The images – those hellish images that paraded before his exhausted eyes – they were almost enough to drag him under, just to overwhelm him completely. So he'd fight them off, push them back, for a little while at least, and then the voice would return, filling up the space they'd left; the outlaw's voice saying _I cannot say for certain – the girl is already far gone_ – and laughing, _laughing_ as he spoke.

Hell. It was hell.

Gunther was in hell.

OOOOO

Those were the quiet times, the times of silence, when the only words he had to contend with were the ones that his own tormented mind dragged up and presented for examination over and over again.

But there were other times too.

Times when Jane, caught in the throes of delirium, said things that he was sure she was unaware of – and most of which he _fervently_ hoped she wouldn't remember later.


	31. Chapter 31

"Put it down. Put it down and just leave."

The first time she spoke out of the blue, it startled Gunther badly.

He was sitting in a chair pulled up to her bedside when it happened. He'd been alternating between lying beside her on the bed, sitting beside her in the chair, and pacing the room like a caged animal. Other people came and went from her chamber, but to Gunther they may as well not have existed. Nothing and no one mattered but Jane.

When she spoke, it surprised him so much that if he _had_ been lying on the bed he'd probably have fallen off. Her voice was clear, strong and authoritative.

"Jane?"

"You heard me," she said, as if in response to him. But she wasn't speaking to him. She wasn't speaking to anyone – not anyone in the room, at least. "Drop it, I said, and go. No one will pursue you, you have my word. _Just leave_."

He shifted from the chair to the edge of her bed. Brushed a few errant curls back from her forehead. Her eyes were closed. She was breathing quickly, shallowly. He didn't like it. " _Jane_."

" _DO NOT!_ " She nearly shrieked the words, making him jump all over again. "This is your last warning, drop the bow right _now!_ You _will not hurt him_ , not while I have breath in my body! I will _kill_ you if you try! Just LEAVE!"

"Oh, _God_ , Jane." He understood now. She was still trying to protect him. Wherever it was that her delirium had taken her, she was still trying to protect _him_. It was almost more than he could stand. He didn't really have a chance to dwell on it though, as a second later she really was screaming.

"No! Gunther! _Gunther, NO!_ " Her eyes flew open – those gorgeous, green eyes – and they were blazing. Her hand shot up and clenched in the fabric of his shirt. "Was I fast enough!?" she demanded frantically. "Say I was, _say I was fast enough_ , PLEASE!"

"You were fast enough, Jane. Damn it to hell. I wish to God you were _not._ But you were."

She stared up at him for a moment longer, those remarkable eyes burning into him with desperate fierceness. And then she was gone again, just that fast, her eyes falling shut and her hand dropping back, to trail off the edge of the bed.

Gunther caught it up, twined his fingers through hers, and held it for a long, long time.

OOOOO

"You cannot tell him. Not ever. Swear it!"

"What?" Gunther spun around. He'd been standing at the room's single window, shutters thrown open, his forehead resting on the cool stone trim, staring sightlessly at the sky. Truth be told, he'd been more than a little checked out. Total physical and emotional exhaustion can do that to a person.

Her eyes were open and focused on him, but he didn't think she was actually seeing him. It was more like she was looking _through_ him than at him.

He crossed the room and sank down beside her. "Jane, what –"

"Promise. You have to _promise!_ Please! Swear it, swear not to tell!"

He had no idea what she was talking about, but whatever it was, she was completely distraught over it, and she shouldn't be exciting herself this way. So he murmured, "all right. Yes. I promise. Jane, I promise. Just rest n–"

"Swear it! _Swear!_ "

"I swear, Jane. Stop worrying about it and rest. It is fine, I promise you. Rest."

She gulped in a deep, shuddery breath, released it in a long sigh, and let her eyes fall closed. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you. He _cannot_ know. It would be different if he loved me back, but… I thought that maybe he… But he was just drunk. Just…"

And she was gone again, back into sleep or unconsciousness or whatever it was that had her in its grip. She didn't hear the agonized groan that was wrenched out of Gunther as understanding set in. He dropped his head into his hands and sat that way for a long time. Then he stretched out next to her on the bed, gathered her up against himself as close as he possibly could, and spent the next hour whispering "I love you" into her ear with every breath he took.


	32. Chapter 32

"I think I must have been fifteen," she said. "So that would have made him seventeen, then."

She spoke calmly, conversationally, and apropos of nothing at all.

Gunther paused in the act of applying a damp cloth to her forehead. He raked his free hand through his hair, then rubbed it hard down his face from forehead to chin, trying to compose himself.

Every single time she spoke out in her delirium, another little piece of his heart was ripped to shreds. He didn't think he could take much more.

"Jane?" he asked finally, tentatively. His voice broke on the single syllable of her name. It was a voice so roughened by exhaustion and stress that he barely even recognized it. It could almost have belonged to a stranger.

At this point he was _feeling_ a bit like a stranger in his own body.

"When I _knew,_ " she said, answering a question he hadn't asked, and sounding slightly exasperated, as if she could hardly believe how _dense_ he was being. "That was not when it started – I am not sure _when_ it started, it came on so gradually. But that was the day that I knew. It was the day the princess broke her leg, do you remember that?"

"Yes," Gunther said. He knew it was ridiculous to be engaging in this conversation – it couldn't truly even be _called_ a conversation; it was the one-sided ravings of a delirious person. She had no idea he was even there. But he was so tired and off-guard that her question, asked in a perfectly reasonable manner, evoked an answer from him because God _yes_ , he remembered that day. It had been a terrible day. _Terrible_.

"Cuthbert came running," Jane said, in a musing, reminiscing sort of tone. "We were the first people he encountered – Gunther and I. We followed him back to where she was, and it was a _distance;_ they had snuck out of the castle keep. Gunther carried her all the way back, he was so gentle and patient with her and she was screaming, I mean absolutely _shrieking_ in his ear the entire time – it _must_ have given him a headache, but you never would have known."

 _A_ headache? Even all these years later, Gunther grimaced. It hadn't given him _a_ headache, it had given him _the_ headache. The mother of _all_ headaches. His head had never pounded that way at any other time before or since. And it hadn't stopped when he'd left the screaming princess in the hands of other, more qualified caretakers, either. That monster headache had stayed with him for hours. It had been bad. _Bad_.

"And then he sat in the courtyard for two hours, mending her broken wings," Jane continued. "She was not even wearing them all the time by then – only occasionally. But he sat there for two hours mending them anyway. And then his father showed up shouting and carrying on because he had been expecting Gunther's help with a shipment – Gunther had been getting ready to go and do that when Cuthbert fetched us. Magnus called him a good-for-nothing layabout, and a lot more too –" (Gunther winced again; even all these years later, the pain of his father's words was just as memorable as the pain of that headache) – "and said that if Gunther did not follow him _directly_ , there would be hell to pay. So of course Gunther said he would – and then he sat there for _another_ whole hour making sure he got those wings just _perfect._ They were better than new. He even adjusted them to account for the fact that she had recently had a growth spurt. When he finally did go home… I cannot even imagine the reception he must have gotten."

Jane might not have been able to imagine it, but Gunther remembered all too well. Suffice to say, it had been pivotal in his decision to take up full-time residence at the castle, which he'd done soon afterward.

"So that was when I knew," Jane concluded simply. "That was the day I knew I loved him."

Then, for a while, she said no more. Gunther was left in silence to contemplate the fact that one of the absolute _worst_ days of his life had apparently, unbeknownst to him, played a critical role in winning this amazing woman's love.


	33. Chapter 33

"Because he would have done the same thing for me," she said emphatically, a few hours later. And then shredded Gunther's heart all over again by adding, in a suddenly hesitant and terribly uncertain little voice, "at least, I… I _think_."

"Yes," he whispered, leaning in close, so that his lips moved against the skin of her temple.

"Yes, Jane, yes. A thousand times yes."

OOOOO

"I liked it."

He had been drowsing, but the words brought his head up with a start.

"What?" He blinked, looked around. It seemed to be the dead of night. The fire in the grate had burned low. Aside from Jane, only he and Adeline were in the room, and Adeline was fast asleep – or at least he fervently hoped she was, given what came next.

"I _liked_ it," she repeated, her voice slow and drowsy. Dreamy. She wasn't awake, of course; not really, although her eyes _were_ open, so dark a green that they looked nearly black in the dim light. She turned her head toward him and smiled, then let her eyes fall shut again. "The other night. Kissing you. _Touching_ you. It felt good. You _tasted_ good."

Gunther's jaw quite literally dropped. He shot a quick, frantic look at Adeline – _dear God, if she is only resting her eyes_ – but the older woman didn't stir. Thank God. Thank _God_ for that!

He returned his attention to Jane just as she declared quite matter-of-factly, "I would like to do that again." Then she sighed, and her breathing evened out, and in another few seconds she was deeply asleep once more, leaving Gunther as wide awake as he'd ever been in his life, absolutely _reeling_ – and flushed right down to the roots of his hair.

OOOOO

(A/N: very short chapter, but fun... at least, I thought so! ;)


	34. Chapter 34

"No! _No!_ NO NO NONO GUNTHER GUNTHER _NO!_ "

It was the darkest part of the night; the long stretch of hours between midnight and dawn. Gunther and Jane were alone in the room – Adeline had finally succumbed to exhaustion, to the point where she'd been carried bodily to her own bedchamber.

Jane's sudden screams were frantic, breathless, entirely hysterical. They came out of the blue during one of his pacing times – although he was pacing less and less frequently now. He no longer had much energy for it; his exhaustion was dragging him under. He felt nearly drugged with it.

But the panicked cries of the woman he loved acted much like a bucket of cold water thrown over his head. They brought everything back into sharp focus, _real_ quick.

"Jane! JANE!" He was across the room in a heartbeat. She was sitting bolt upright in bed, the coverlet pooled around her waist, her eyes wide and wild, and he didn't know what she was seeing, but it definitely wasn't this room, wasn't him.

"No! No! God NO! Me, shoot _ME!_ GUNTHER, _GUNTHER N_ –"

He practically threw himself onto the bed; ended up on his knees, straddling her legs, wrapping his arms around her and just crushing her to him, not thinking, not rationalizing, just needing that contact, _needing_ it. _Now._

She stiffened in his arms, trying to wrench away. "Gunther, Gunther, no, please no, do not – do not – no Gunther, stay with me, stay with me, please! No – No – _NO_ –"

"Jane. Jane. Jane, _Jane_." Slowly, he eased her back down against her pillows, murmuring her name over and over again as he did so. "Jane, I am here, _right here_ , not going anywhere, _Jane_."

He couldn't help but notice – and God, how it hurt his heart to see – that she immediately crossed one arm protectively over her body, pressing it up hard beneath the swell of her breasts. She was still hurting so much and God, it should have been him, it should have been _him_.

Her other hand though, was caught in the fabric of his shirt again, high up on his chest near his shoulder, and he couldn't tell – didn't think she understood _herself_ – whether she was trying to pull him closer or push him away.

He took both _his_ hands – shaking, they were shaking harder than they ever had in his life – and framed her face with them, just as he had when she'd been lying on the road. She'd been screaming then too, and she was the strongest person he knew, bar none, the strongest and the bravest and the noblest and the… the… and she didn't deserve this, god _damnit_ she didn't deserve this, this was so wrong, so wrong, so _WRONG_.

"Jane. Jane. Please. Oh God, please. Come back to me. Jane, come _back_."

"No," she whispered hoarsely, and there was such anguish in her voice, such defeat, such utter… _brokenness_ , that Gunther's breath caught in his throat. She was looking right at him, but her eyes were vacant and… and _burning_ with despair. "There is nothing to come back to, I was not fast enough, I failed, I _failed_. Gunther. Oh, God. No. Do not be _dead_ , oh please please, _NO_."

She wasn't seeing him, wasn't hearing him, wasn't feeling his hands on her face. She was lost to him, in some nightmare reality where _he_ was lost to _her_ – and that was when he reached the end of his ability to cope, and then something happened that surprised them both.

He felt the sudden, hitching shudder rip through him, but he didn't understand what it meant, what it _was_ , until he saw the tear splash down on Jane's face. It was quickly followed by two more.

He had just time to think, _God DAMN it, is this the only thing I am good at anymore, crying like a_ ch–

And then Jane, beneath him, gasped and blinked, once – twice – and he suddenly realized that her eyes were… were _hers_ again, they were _aware_ again – they were so amazingly, beautifully lucid and clear that they took his breath away.

" _Gunther,_ " she breathed, and took the hand that had been fisted in his clothing and raised it to his cheek – cupping the side of his face, wiping the rest of his tears away with her thumb.

A smile started to curve her lips; it was an expression of such happy astonishment that it bordered on downright awe. "Are you all right?" she asked wonderingly. "Are you _really?_ "

He didn't have a chance to respond. He was still processing how absurdly backward it was that _she_ should be asking _him_ that question, when she sighed, and her eyes fell closed, and her hand dropped away from his face.

She was gone again, but she'd been there – she'd truly _been_ there. For the first time in hours and hours and hours, she'd been there with him, awake and aware.

It felt like a turning point.

Something in him – some terrible, tight black knot – loosened. Just a very little bit, but it loosened. He drew in a deep, shaky breath; he'd been breathing at the top of his lungs for so long, so long. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like to actually fill them, right to the bottom.

Then he shifted her gently over on the bed, lay down beside her, snugged one arm protectively around her waist, plunged his other hand into her riot of flame-colored curls, and was asleep – truly, _deeply_ asleep – almost before his head came to rest, cushioned on her uninjured shoulder.

OOOOO

(A/N: well how's that for a Christmas present - she woke up! Merry Christmas! :)


	35. Chapter 35

Faint grey dawn light was filtering in through the shutters of the room's single window.

Jane and Gunther been sleeping face to face, sharing a pillow, and they woke at nearly the same time.

She opened her eyes first, but only by a few seconds. She'd barely had time to focus on him when he opened his own, slowly, drowsily. They settled on her face and then started to drift closed again, as though he'd only been assuring himself that she was still there before sinking back into sleep once more.

Then, suddenly, those incredible slate-grey eyes opened wide. She watched him come back into himself, watched him realize that _she_ had come back into _herself_.

"H'lo." Her voice was a cracked whisper.

"Jane," he breathed. Shifting position slightly, he reached out and brushed her hair back from her forehead, pressing his palm to her skin, gauging her temperature. Then he cupped the side of her face, opened his mouth as if about to say more – but no words came, just a little, double-hitching gasp, and he slammed his eyes shut again, but not before Jane saw them fill, almost instantaneously, with tears.

It rocked her right down to her foundation. " _Gunther_ –"

But she didn't have a chance to say any more than that, because in the next instant he was pulling her to him, _crushing_ her to him, with desperate intensity – and burying his face in her hair, right at the place where her shoulder met her neck, and crying like a child. One who's been lost in the cold for far too long.

Her aching ribs protested _fiercely_ – but Jane had a high tolerance for pain and it would have taken a lot more than that to compel her to break this contact.

So she wrapped her own arms around him and held him right back, stunned by the intensity of his sobs, feeling suddenly like she couldn't get him close _enough_ , there needed to be more contact, _total_ contact, contact along the entire length of their bodies. So she hooked a leg over his hip and used it to yank him against her even harder, frantic for that connection, thinking crazily, incoherently, _we can stay like this forever – I am never going to let him go_.

For his part, Gunther responded by tightening his arms around her still more, something that a few seconds ago she would not have thought possible. It was as if he were trying to somehow meld them into a single being.

They stayed that way for a very long time.

Finally Gunther pulled back a little. Only a very little, though. They were still practically forehead to forehead. His hand, which had been cupping the side of her face, moved just slightly to begin stroking her hair.

Jane moved one of her hands too, pressing it to his chest, suddenly overwhelmed by a desire to see if she could actually feel his heart beating. She could; it was pounding. And fast.

"I thought I had lost you." He spoke the words raggedly, in a voice that was little more than a croak. "I was so sure. I thought that would be my – that I would have to – because I _deserved_ to lose you after what – Oh my God, Jane, oh God, I love you _so much_. Why did you – why did you _do_ th–"

He broke off and swallowed hard; swallowed back a sob.

"You would have done the same," she whispered.

"Yes! God, _yes!_ In a heartbeat! But that is because _you deserve_ to be saved! You deserve it, but _me!?_ I just… I just…"

This was not a sentence she could allow him to finish. She moved her hand again, sliding it around to the base of his neck, yanked his head forward, and kissed him.


	36. Chapter 36

He was kissing her back immediately, desperately. His lips moving against hers with near-frantic intensity, asking her to open to him, let him in, deepen the kiss still further.

She did. And they were lost in the physicality of the moment, in the sensation of that kiss, not stopping until they were forced to break apart, gasping for air.

Their foreheads were touching; their noses too. Red hair mingled with black on the pillow. Her lips were nearly moving against his as she asked brokenly, "Gunther, _why?_ I thought… that night, I thought that we… Why in the morning did… why were you…"

"Sorry," he gasped, sounding almost as if he were in physical pain. "I am so so sorry Jane, oh my _God_ , I am so sorry. I thought… you would be distracted by what I… by what _we_ had d… I only wanted to protect you but I… it was the worst mistake of my life. If I had only… if things had been different… then maybe it would have been me. It _should_ have been me, it was meant to be _me!_ Jane, I –"

But he was cut off again as Jane, having sufficiently regained her breath, sealed his lips with her own once more.

OOOOO

"Promise me," he said raggedly, some moments later, when they had finally, reluctantly, parted again. "Promise me that you will never do anything like that, for _me_ , again. Jane, you have to, because I could not… it would break me. I _cannot_ go through this again, I..."

"All right," she whispered, and he had just time to think, _too easy, that was_ much _too easy_ , when she added, "if you will make the same vow."

"Not in a hundred years! Over my dead body will you _ever_ be hurt this way again! _Ever_ , Jane!"

"Gunther, what you are asking is not fair –"

" _I do not care about fair!_ I care about _you!_ About keeping you _safe!_ Oh my God, Jane, if I lost – if I lost you –"

"But you _might,_ " she said relentlessly. "Gunther, you might. And I might lose _you_. Because of who we are and what we do, it will always be a possibility. We will be in danger again. And you will always try to protect me and you had better believe that I will _always_ try to protect _you_. As long as it does not directly conflict with the knight's code or my oath to the king, protecting you will be my _highest_ priority in absolutely _any_ situation, because I love you _so_ much, you stupid man, so so so m-mmmph!"

This time it was Gunther who crashed his lips down on hers, cutting off speech for quite some time.

OOOOO

"Can you accept it, then?" She asked.

" _NO_." Gunther's response was immediate and emphatic. "No, I cannot accept it. That something like this could happen again and you could actually be taken _away_ from me!? That is completely unacceptable. But I suppose I will learn to live with it. What choice do I have?"

"None," Jane said calmly. "You cannot tuck me away somewhere for safekeeping, Gunther, and if you ever tried –"

"That would be the surest way to lose you," he interrupted. "I know. Damn it, I _know_." His voice was gravelly with emotion.

"Gunther." She pressed her hand gently to the side of his face. "If I were not the person you grew up with, the person you _trained_ with, if I were not a knight, if I were not who I _am,_ would you even love me in the first place?"

"No," he whispered wretchedly. "No, I love _everything_ you are. I cannot imagine loving anyone who was _not_ everything you are. But Jane, how can I accept… if this happened again – or something _worse_ – it would kill me, Jane, I _could not_ survive it, I –"

"Yes you _could_ ," she said, suddenly fierce. "You could, and you would, and you would go on and do your duty to the king, because _that is the oath you took_ , and if I… if I had to lose _you_ … I would do the same thing. That is who we are, Gunther. That is _who we are_."

" _Stop_ ," he gasped.

"Gunther –"

"True, all true, I know. I _know_. I just… can we… for now… stop talking about it and… and just…"

"Yes?" she whispered, anticipating another earth-shattering kiss… and he _did_ kiss her, but on the forehead this time. Then he wrapped his arms around her and just _held_ her again, one hand splayed at the small of her back, the other at the back of her head, fingers buried in her mass of curls, pressing her face into the crook of his neck, nestled just under his chin.

She held him back as tightly as she could… for a little while, at least. But her body was still far from recovered – her ordeal still terribly fresh.

It was just a few moments later that all the tension ebbed out of her, and Gunther realized that she had drifted quietly back to sleep.


	37. Chapter 37

"Are you going easy on me!? You had better not be, Gunther Breech!"

Gunther mopped sweat from his brow, using the gesture to buy himself a few critical seconds before responding. Of _course_ he was going easy on her – but there was no way in hell he was going to admit it. Despite his considerable shortcomings in the parenting department, this much could be said for Magnus Breech: he had not raised an idiot.

"Jane, it is too hot for this," he finally said. "If you are not ready for a break, _I_ am."

" _No!_ " she burst out in frustration. Dragon, lazing nearby in the sun, cracked an eye, glanced over to make sure things were all right, then heaved himself into a new position and resumed his nap. Three weeks had passed since Jane had awakened from her delirium, and he had been sticking uncommonly close to her in that time.

So, for that matter, had Gunther. And he was of the firm opinion that she was pushing herself _far_ too hard. She had insisted on resuming their sparring sessions two days ago, despite his decidedly less-than-enthusiastic response to the idea… but as far as _today_ went, they were done. The way she had her non-sword-arm wrapped hard around her midsection, pressed protectively over her ribs, absolutely sealed the deal as far as he was concerned.

Now he just had to find a tactful way of convincing her to end their practice. And it did not appear that would be an easy task.

"Do not _do_ this, Gunther! I am _fine_ , and I want to go again!"

He saw, with some alarm, that she actually appeared to be on the verge of tears. Jane didn't cry easily. She'd been so frustrated with herself during her convalescence, so impatient to get back into "fighting form".

And it wasn't _fair_ – that was what killed him. She shouldn't be putting herself through this; she'd been through _hell_ , absolute hell. She'd almost _died_.

But every time he tried to point that out, she shut him down. She didn't want to hear it. Stubborn, stubborn woman.

"Jane –"

Before he could utter another word, she gave an inarticulate little cry and launched herself at him, attempting to _surprise_ him into engaging. He sidestepped and deflected her easily – far, _far_ too easily – then caught her by the upper arms, being ever so careful to avoid grasping her shoulders. He was fairly certain that the wound, which in and of itself had been quite small, would be pretty well healed by now – but he was taking no chances. The memory of grabbing her by the shoulders as she lay on the dusty road – of her _reaction_ to that – still loomed very large in his mind.

"Stop. Jane, _stop_."

"No, _you_ stop!" She tried to wrench herself out of his grip, to no avail. "Why are you _doing_ this!? Gunther, _help_ me! I need – I need to –"

"To rest. Jane, you need to _rest_. This is not good for you."

She drew in a sharp breath and he braced himself, expecting that she was about to _really_ light into him, just let him _have_ it – and then she dumbfounded him by virtually crumpling in his arms and sobbing so hard it was as if her body were literally trying to shake itself apart.

Quite suddenly his grasp on her was the only thing holding her up any longer. Swearing under his breath, he first pulled her hard against him, and then sank to his knees with her, wrapping his arms around her, starting to rock her as she cried hysterically into his chest.


	38. Chapter 38

A second later, a shadow blocked the sun and he glanced up to find Dragon's face inches from his own, wearing an expression of unmistakable menace.

"What did you _say_ to her, short-life?" Dragon growled.

"I just told her she needs to rest! Surely you agree with that, Dragon! She has been pushing herself so hard, _too_ hard –"

" _Jane!_ " Dragon interjected. "Jane, talk to me – or even him – _one_ of us!"

She gasped something out, but it was utterly incomprehensible. She did, however, drop her practice blade – she'd been holding onto it all this time – and drag her arms up to lock around Gunther's neck. She actually clenched a fistful of his hair in one of her hands, and he didn't _think_ she was doing it intentionally but _OW_ that hurt – he just gritted his teeth and endured it, though. There was no way he was going to pull back from her now.

Her gesture did accomplish _this_ much; it convinced Dragon that Gunther was not somehow hurting her or holding her against her will. He backed very slightly off.

Gunther dropped his face into her hair, tightening his arms still further and murmuring "shh, shh, shh Jane," as she sobbed herself out.

It took a long time before he was able to decipher words and when he did, he almost wished he hadn't – they twisted his heart inside his chest.

"I… feel… so… _useless_ ," she gasped between hitching, erratic breaths.

"Are you _mad!?_ " The words burst out of him before he had time to think, to consider whether this was something he should say. It was a gut reaction, and too powerful to be denied. "Jane! _Jane!_ Stop and look at me. _Look_ at me now!"

He pushed her back to arm's length, bracing her with one hand and pressing the other to the side of her face. "Does it even matter to you that I am still _alive!?_ " he demanded. "Jane! Does that _matter!?_ "

"Yes!" she managed, struggling to get her breathing under control. "Of course that matters, Gunther!"

"Well you are the reason," he said, speaking more quietly now, but with great emphasis. "Does that sound useless to you? My God, woman, I would be _dead_ if not for you! How could you – how could you _ever_ think –" he shook his head in frustration. But at least he had her attention now; that counted for something. He swallowed hard and tried again.

"When we walked into that clearing, who was the first one – the _only_ one – to see the enemy before they broke cover? It was _you_. Who gave the rest of us that split-second warning that I am _sure_ saved lives? You. Who saw the danger I was in, from _across the clearing_ , when I never even saw it myself? You. Who somehow… covered all that distance…"

He was having to fight for composure now. Whenever he thought of Jane doing that, running flat-out like that, in order to fling herself into danger, in order to damn near give her _life_ for him – he almost came undone.

But this was important, so he sucked in a deep breath, mastered himself, and continued – "Covered all that distance moving faster than… than _anyone_ should have a right to move, in order to save me from something that I was too blind to see – you. _Jane, it was all you_. And then who… who pushed on for days after… when any… anyone else would… have…"

No, it was no good. If it was hard to think about Jane hurtling herself across that clearing in order to take an arrow – a godamned _poisoned arrow_ – in his stead, it was _impossible_ to think about the way she'd suffered afterward, on the journey home, with any degree of rationality or coherence. Anytime he even approached it in his mind, a single thought would surface, eclipsing all others; _never forgive myself. Ever._ Ever _. Not even if I live to be a hundred. I will_ never _forgive myself_.

And that was where that line of thought would end. As it ended now. And his ability to be articulate ended with it.

Suddenly he couldn't even look directly at her any longer, this spectacular woman he had so utterly failed. He dropped his head and when he next spoke, his voice was a raw whisper.

"How could I have let that happen? How could I have _done_ that to you?"

"I have actually been wondering the same thing myself," Dragon muttered, from where he'd settled on his haunches nearby.

 _That_ was what brought Jane's head up with a jerk. "Dragon!"

"Jane!" her friend rejoined, rolling his eyes. He was still projecting a sense of concern, but he was significantly calmer than he'd been a moment ago.

She refocused her attention on Gunther, drew in breath to speak – but he forestalled her. "No, let me… let me try to get through this," he said, raising his eyes again to meet her tear-bright green gaze.

"What you said… right after you woke up. About how if I ever had to –" he broke off, swallowed hard – "to lose you, I would go on, I would fulfill my oath to the king because that is who we are and what we do… it was true. It was… brutal, and not something I wanted to hear, but it was true. But I wonder if you understand – Jane, _something_ would go on, yes, something that looked like me, some _shell_ – but it would not _really_ be me, not –"

He shook his head. "I would be _over_ , Jane. I might keep breathing, keep moving, keep fighting… I would certainly go looking for vengeance. _Nothing_ would stand in the way of that. But inside? No, just… no. That is how necessary you are to me, how indispensible. Not to mention, five times the knight I will _ever_ be. Does that sound useless to you? _Does_ it!?"

"No," she breathed. Then she slammed her eyes shut, causing two more fat tears to spill over and streak down her cheeks. She was biting on her lip again, worrying it. "No, but –"

"Huh-uh." He was reaching for her again, folding her against himself, feeling her head fall against his shoulder with a gentle thud. "Stop yourself. There is no 'but'. Let it be."

She gave a deep, shuddering sigh, and they stayed like that for a very long time – long enough for Dragon to make a final, disgruntled noise and settle himself back down to resume his nap. Gunther was wondering if Jane had fallen asleep in his arms _herself_ , when she finally stirred.

Raising her head, she tried for a smile. It was a valiant effort, but not particularly successful. "I, uh… think I had better go lie down," she said.

Gunther heartily agreed.

"Gunther, I… am sure you have things to do today, but later – um, tonight – would you come? To my room? I… have not been sleeping well and I think that is part of my problem and I just… I think it might be better… if you were there?"

He simply gawped at her for a moment – then realized his mouth was hanging open and shut it with a snap, raking a hand distractedly through his hair as he did so.

"Well… _yes_ ," he said, once he'd collected himself to the point where he could speak at all. "Yes, if you… want me to, then of course. Of _course_ , Jane."

She made a second, marginally more successful attempt at a smile and whispered, "thank you."

Gunther reached out, brushing the backs of his fingers across her cheeks, wiping tears away. "You do _not_ have to thank me." Then he smiled back and, wondering if she would remember, said, "your mother would have to chase me off with a stick."

"Do not be seen," Jane said gravely, "or she most assuredly _will_."


	39. Chapter 39

Supper that evening was... interesting.

They sat around the garden table the way they had used to do quite a lot when they were younger – and still did occasionally, when various responsibilities didn't keep most members of their group away.

There were additions, though.

Rake had a chubby toddler balanced on each knee – his year-and-a-half-old twins, Ada and Alain. Ordinarily Pepper would be holding one of the children, but she was so swollen with child _again_ – due any day, in fact – that Rake was good-naturedly doing double duty. Seated between Jester and Smithy was Smithy's wife Susanna, a good-hearted town girl who was also expecting – although she'd only just begun to show. She had recently been helping the enormously pregnant Pepper in the kitchen quite a bit.

They talked of only lighthearted things, and laughed, and begged a song from Jester... and then another. No one brought up the fact that the king was due to pronounce judgment on the three prisoners in the morning. That would take care of itself in due time, but for now the evening was warm, the lantern-light was cheerful, the company – and food – were good, and there was an unspoken agreement all around the heavy-laden trestle table that the mood should remain upbeat.

But for all of this, both Gunther and Jane seemed a bit... distracted. They sat beside each other – _close_ beside each other – but rarely made eye contact and when they did, one or the other would quickly look away. In fact, Pepper – who was observing all this from the corner of her eye, with a hand tactfully raised to hide her smile – was positive that at one point she even saw Jane blush.

Like the other denizens of the castle, she'd have been hard-pressed to miss Gunther's fierce show of devotion as Jane had fought her way back from death's door. No one had been positive, however, about whether Jane herself had felt the same way. She hadn't exactly been in any condition to ask. It was true that she had often called his name while delirious, but that didn't prove anything; it could just as easily be put down to their bond as comrades-in-arms. _Now_ , though... Pepper was quite certain she recognized what was going on. _Mismatched?_ She mused to herself, her secret smile widening. _Not this time, I think_.

She wondered, idly, when the wedding would be.

OOOOO

The moon was up, and had been for some time, when Gunther knocked quietly on Jane's door, then waited for an answer. He was just raising his hand to knock again when he heard her voice, sounding muffled and sleepy, call, "come in."

He opened the door and slipped inside, shutting it quietly behind him. He paused for a moment, debating… then threw the latch. And then he stayed where he was, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness; Jane, he saw, was already in bed.

"I woke you," he said softly. It was not a question. Her hair was even more of a glorious, rumpled mess than usual. He felt a small half-smile quirk his lips as he thought back to a time when that incredible mane of hair had been a source of intense consternation to him; the early days of their squire training when he hadn't known _what_ to make of such an untamable mass of hair – _or_ of the girl it belonged to. He had even once suggested that they cut it all off and weave it into a rope. She hadn't been keen on that idea, unsurprisingly.

He'd loved her even then. He certainly hadn't realized it yet, but...

In the present moment, her eyes were heavy-lidded and her movements slow, languid. "Yes," she said, "I drifted off waiting for you, but it is alright. I will sleep even better with you here." She'd been in the middle of the bed but now she scooted to the far edge, and patted the space beside her. "Come on, Sir Gunther, are you going to stand there all night?"

Feeling a bit as if he were moving in a dream himself, he crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, took off his boots and slipped in beside her under the coverlet.

Jane had been absolutely right; at the end of the day, Gunther reflected, she usually was. She had intuited that she would sleep better with him in the room, and that was exactly what happened, as far as Gunther could tell at any rate.

She nestled up to him, slung an arm about his waist, pushed her head in right under his chin, and was sound asleep in thirty seconds.

Gunther pulled in a deep breath, released it in a long, slightly unsteady sigh, curled an arm protectively around her, and was sound asleep in thirty more.

OOOOO

(A/N: next chapter things get a bit... "steamy". Nothing graphically descriptive but still, you understand what's going on. Consider yourself notified! ;)


	40. Chapter 40

(A/N: This chapter is for Amelle Kyre, because I mentioned to her a long time ago that I was considering doing a "smutilogue" - _if_ Jane survived her ordeal - and she said she'd hold me to it! So here it is - well, part 1 of 2, anyway ;)

OOOOO

He woke up to… the strangest sensation.

At first he thought he was still dreaming – then his breath caught in his throat and he knew that he was not.

Jane was… quite clearly… awake already. The hand that had been circling his waist as she'd slept was moving now, fingertips lightly drawing patterns on the skin of his side and back – _underneath_ his clothes. He gasped in a shuddery, hitching breath, and she used her other hand to push his hair back, out of his eyes.

"Hello," she whispered. They were lying face-to-face on the pillow again, just as they had been when she'd awoken the morning after her fever had broken. It wasn't lost on him that her greeting now was the same as it had been then.

"Jane," he gasped. It felt like her fingers were trailing fire. "What are… do you… are you sure –"

She smiled – it was very dark in the room now, but he caught it anyway. They were knights, after all.

Then she silenced him with her lips.

OOOOO

"But are you _sure?_ " he asked again, panting, grating the words out from between clenched teeth. "Jane, this is… you have to… be sure. There is no going back, there is no… undoing this once it is done."

Already they had far surpassed the limits of what they had done in the woods, on the night before the skirmish. And now he was holding himself above her, holding himself very carefully and very still. And Jane understood, though this was all so new to her and she was so swamped by sensation that she was barely capable of coherent thought, that they were right on the cusp of… _the next thing_.

As Gunther had said, the un-take-backable thing.

But why would she ever _want_ to take it back? Who else would she ever want to _give_ this to? No one. No one on earth but this man. No moment in time but this moment.

He was levered up on his elbows, giving her room to breathe, but other than that they were pressed together, the whole length of their bodies, all clothing long since discarded. This was intimacy beyond anything Jane had ever imagined – he was so warm against her, so vibrant and alive. Hard muscle, taut and trembling in this moment, and yet he was covered (as was she) with a light film of perspiration that made his skin feel like satin as it slid against her own.

And they had already done things that felt so good, so oh-dear-God _good_ – she was in a state of near total sensory overload; it was almost more than she could take.

And yet the final act of consummation beckoned and she understood on a deep, instinctive level that when they took that plunge, everything else they had done would pale to insignificance. She couldn't really comprehend a deeper… closeness… than they had already achieved, but she knew it was waiting for them nevertheless.

And oh God, she wanted it. With him. Always and only with him. The one she would die for. The one who would die for _her_.

The fact that there was a distinct possibility one of those scenarios could _happen_ at some future time made this moment all the more poignant and bittersweet.

All these thoughts flashed across her consciousness like shooting stars, but she had no idea, really, how to articulate any of it. The best she could do was, "Gunther… yes… I want… I want… _all_ of you."

A half-smile quirked his lips… but it didn't touch his eyes. Those remarkable grey eyes were very, very serious.

"Jane, I could walk away right now and never see you again and you would still have all of me, until the day I die. That was a done deal _long_ ago. I am yours, _all_ yours, whether we do this or not… and you have to be sure."

She gulped in a deep breath, tried to ground herself. "I am… more sure than… I have ever been," she managed at last. "Please, Gunther, I… I need this."

His arms had been braced on either side of her head but he shifted now, pressing one hand to the side of her face and running the other down, along the side of her body – and God, her nerve-endings were on _fire_ – to gently grasp her hip, steadying her against him.

His lips were actually moving against hers as he murmured, "I love you more than anything, Jane. _Anything_."

"Not more than I love you," she said with absolute certainty.

He started to reply – well, to _argue_ , in point of fact – and at a moment like this! How perfectly in character was _that?_ But Jane was done speaking.

Operating purely on instinct now, she wrapped her legs around him, locking her ankles at his waist, simultaneously sealing her lips to his and very effectively cutting off whatever it was he'd been about to say.

He groaned, and then he was moving against her, he was moving… _into_ her, and filling her in a way she had never even _dreamed_ was possible… and then finally, she truly understood what _total contact_ actually was.


	41. Chapter 41

She broke the kiss as a cry was ripped out of her. Suddenly everything was far, _far_ too intense. She'd been on the brink of sensory overload before – now she was fully immersed in it. As _he_ was fully immersed in _her_.

He stopped, framed her face with his hands, whispered, "I am sorry." She felt his thumb skate across her overheated cheek; realized he was wiping tears away. She'd had no idea that she'd started to cry.

It made sense, though, she supposed, because oh dear sweet God, this _hurt_ … and yet, it was the sweetest pain in the world. Because it meant they were linked together in a way that, as Gunther had said, could never be undone.

Nor was that all. As the pain began to subside a bit, as her body began to adjust, she became aware of something – some deep well of sensation – that was waiting right on the other side of that pain. It was going to hit her in a moment. And when it did…

More tears wanted to come. She sucked in a deep, hitching breath and blinked rapidly several times, trying to fight them back. She failed, but she was almost glad she did, because then Gunther was kissing them away and it was the most tender thing anyone had ever done for her.

His voice was ragged. "Should we –"

" _No_. No, do not stop. No, I just… just needed a moment to… it is alright. It _is_. Go."

But he stayed perfectly still. "Jane –"

Caught in a maelstrom of emotions, she very nearly laughed. "Gunther, I typically speak my mind, do I not?"

He actually _did_ laugh a little at that. "I would say that is accurate, yes."

"So if I wanted to stop, I would say so. I want to _go_. Gunther – do not make me beg."

He didn't.

A second later he was moving again, and then she was burying her flushed face in his shoulder and moving _with_ him, gasping and whimpering as pain gave way to pleasure, picking up on his rhythm and matching it, then _building_ on it, climbing higher and higher and taking him with her, and then…

And then...

The whole world fell away.

OOOOO

They held each other afterward, drowsing. Jane had never felt so sated, so... complete. She'd almost fallen asleep when she realized that Gunther was tracing the scar on her shoulder with a fingertip. She blinked herself back to wakefulness and Gunther, realizing that she knew what he was doing, dipped his head and brushed the silvery scar with his lips.

She shivered – it was still a sensitive place.

"I would take that away from you if I could," he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. "I wish to God I could."

"I love you," she whispered, marveling that such a short while ago, she'd been worried that speaking those words to him had been among the worst mistakes of her life.

He tangled a hand in her hair and kissed her deeply, his other hand moving to cup her breast and Jane suddenly found that sleep had become the absolute _farthest_ thing from her mind.


	42. Chapter 42

(A/N: this is it, guys. It's been quite the ride! Thank you for taking it with me!)

OOOOO

"So," he said some time later, "the day the princess broke her leg…"

Jane, who had felt as if she were floating in a warm and sated haze, furrowed her brow, puzzled. "Yes? What about it?"

"What about it, indeed?" he countered, one corner of his mouth twitching, an unmistakably teasing light in his eyes.

She could _see_ it because just moments ago, he'd left the bed to build her fire back up. They were already snuggled up again, though – a jumble of limbs and blankets and tumbled hair, just reveling in their closeness.

"Anything you would like to disclose?"

"Uh, no, I –"

"No life-changing revelations I should maybe know about?"

"Gunther, what –"

That teasing half-smile widened into an outright grin. "About how that was the day you knew you loved me, perhaps?"

Her eyes widened. For just a fraction of a second, confusion was writ large in her expression – then everything clicked into place.

"Oh my G – _what_ – _how_ did you –"

Still grinning, he dropped a kiss on her forehead. "You talk in your sleep, you know. Rather a lot, actually."

"I _what!?_ "

"Oh, yes. All manner of topics –"

" _WHAT ELSE?_ "

"Well, apparently you enjoyed what we did in the woods that night _very_ much –"

"You are making that up!"

"Which part? That you enjoyed it, or that you _said_ so? As for how much you enjoyed it, only you can truly tell, but as for whether you _announced_ that you enjoyed it, well, that most certainly _did_ happen – and with your mother in the room, I might add."

" _NO!_ Gunther! No! You cannot be serious, this is a _disaster_ –"

"Shhhh," he murmured, levering himself up on one elbow and running his thumb over her lips – they were swollen, almost _bruised_ , from all the kissing they had done this night. "She was asleep, Jane – fast asleep. I mean, obviously. I am still _alive_ , am I not?"

She stared up at him for a moment, looking as if she _really wanted_ to be angry – and then burst into helpless laughter. And pulled him back down, into yet another kiss.

OOOOO

"But _did_ you know that day?" he asked drowsily, several moments later. "Was that really… _when?_ "

"Yes," she said. She was lying with her head cushioned on his shoulder. "Yes, that was when. Not when it started. But that was when I knew."

"You said that too. When you were… dreaming."

"You mean delirious."

His arms tightened around her, almost spasmodically. 'I do not want to think about that."

"I got through it. _You_ got me through it."

" _I_ put you there in the first place."

"Gunther –"

"I will never be able to make that up to you. But I will never stop trying. I love you, Jane. So much."

She sighed. Let her eyes fall closed. "When did _you_ start?"

"Start?"

"Loving _me_ , dung brain. When did _you_ start?"

" _Dung_ brain?" He gave one of her curls a sharp little yank.

"Ow!" She started to push herself up, caught between amusement and annoyance, but he dropped his lips to the hollow above her collarbone, and then he dragged them slowly, tantalizingly… _lower_ … and _then_ he did something that made her shudder and gasp, and forget all about being annoyed.

OOOOO

"But… when _did_ you, though?" she asked, once she was capable of coherent speech again.

"Start loving you? That is an impossible question, Jane."

"What –"

"I cannot answer it because I do not think there was _ever_ a time I did not love you. There was a while before I _knew_ – just like you described. There was a while before I understood."

"Gunther, I… no, that cannot... we were not particularly nice to each other for _at least_ the first –"

"Oh, I never said I always _liked_ you," he broke in, flashing that devilish grin again. "That is an _entirely_ different matter. "But Jane –" he grew serious once more. "I did not have a… a happy childhood. And the moment I saw _you_ I think I realized – not at the front of my mind, no, but somewhere near the back – that here was… here was… what had been missing. Here was what could make everything all right again. No, not again – that would imply that things had been right _before_. And nothing was right before you. Here was what could make everything all right… at _last._ Here was –" he dropped his eyes away from hers, his voice cracking on the last word – "home."

She sucked in a deep breath. Reached out and grasped his chin, compelling him to raise his head and meet her gaze again. "Do you mean it?"

"With all my heart."

"And you will never… pull _away_ again, like –"

"I will never stop kicking myself for that. Please believe my intentions were only to try and protect you but oh my _God_ , I was so wrong. Worst mistake of my life – and I swear to you, Jane, I will _never_ repeat it. I do not _deserve_ another chance, but –"

"You do," she said fiercely, "yes, you _do_."

"But if you give me one," he continued, "I have a feeling things might reach a point where _you_ will be tempted to chase me off with a stick, because that is the only way I will ever leave your side."

She laughed at this, but then sobered again. "Do you really think," she asked, "that after everything… everything we have been _doing_ all night – " (she blushed prettily as she said this) – "I would just, what, turn you out and say, second chance _denied!?_ "

He looked down again, for a long time, restlessly picking at a loose thread on her coverlet. Then cleared his throat and said, "if you wanted to torture me the way I know I tortured _you,_ that would be a good way to do it."

"Gunther! I would _never do that_. You are completely impossible sometimes, but deliberately _torture_ you? Never in life. I want you safe, I want you happy, I want us together. _Those_ are my priorities, not torturing you, which you do well enough yourself. And which, by the way, you need to _stop_. Everyone makes mistakes. I have made plenty."

"Absolutely not," he said. "You are perfect."

"That is complete rubbish and you _know_ it!"

"I will thank you not to speak that way about the woman I love, or we are about to have our first argument as… what _are_ we exactly, now?"

She reached out and caught his face in both her hands. "Us," she said. "We are us. And every mistake led us here. So while I would take care not to repeat them, I am not going to waste time regretting them either. I love you, Gunther Breech. So very, very much."

"Not as much as I love you," he said, that challenging light back in his eyes.

Jane sighed. Trust him to choose this moment to go and be… _difficult_. Fortunately, however, she had a brand-new weapon at her disposal. And ever the dedicated knight, she had absolutely no qualms about using whatever weaponry she came by.

Would there be arguments? – Of _course_ there would. Gunther was still Gunther and, yes, _she_ was still Jane. Nothing in either of their essential natures had changed. There would be arguments.

But she knew, now, how to end them.

Most effectively, in fact.

Just as she intended to put an end to this one, before it ever really got off the ground in the first place.

So, still holding his face in both her hands, she pulled him down to her, sealed her lips to his, and cut off all speech for quite some time.

OOOOO

FIN

OOOOO

(A/N: I'm considering a sequel set a couple of years in the future that would plunge them back into heart-wrenching, soul-crushing angst, cause that's how I roll, lol! But it wouldn't be up for a while - I need a little breather. So for now, let them bask in their happiness! But yeah - possible continuation at some point :)


End file.
